Reader mail: Saving 'Chuck,' actor/producers, and more

Technical difficulties prevented the posting of today's reader mailbag column until a couple of minutes ago, but it's up now if you want the address of Angela Bromstad at NBC, or to see video of Zachary Levi taking a bunch of British "Chuck" fans to Subway (I'm on my way there this evening), or to hear my take on where "West Wing" went wrong. Click here to read the full post

Thank her for being a friend

I was away from the computer for most of the weekend, so by the time I was in a position to write anything about the death of Bea Arthur, it felt like the moment had passed. Fortunately, plenty of other TV pundit types provided their own thoughtful takes, including my friend Joe Adalian, who just started up his own blog at TVWeek. Joe offers up five lessons modern TV could learn from Arthur, and I give a particular amen to this one:

2. Broadcasters are making a big mistake not developing shows starring older people. Yes, "The Golden Girls" represented a hard-to-replicate chemistry of amazing actresses and sharp writers (including, of course, Marc Cherry). But the show's huge popularity when first on NBC, and its continued cult following today, indicate younger audiences judge shows by the content of their scripts, not the age of their actors.

With comedies still struggling on the networks, broadcasters need to start coming up with concepts that aren't on the air. Old folks on comedies don't exist in primetime, even, amazingly, on CBS. I'm with James Poniewozik over at Tuned In: Bring on the geezers!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: "Friends," as popular as it was, and as good as it could be at times, really wrecked the sitcom because it convinced every programmer that they had to fill their comedies with young and attractive people, regardless of whether they were funny.

UPDATE: I should also point you to Linda Holmes' piece at NPR about that brief period in the mid-late '80s when sitcoms were full of "broads" like Bea Arthur. Click here to read the full post

Breaking Bad, "Better Call Saul": The cost of doing business

Spoilers for tonight's "Breaking Bad" coming up just as soon as I put a dollar in your pocket...

"You don't want a criminal lawyer. You want a criminal lawyer." -Jesse

"Breaking Bad" is a show that's usually driven far more by character than plot, but every now and then we get an episode like "Better Call Saul" that moves the storyline dramatically forward. But what's great about it is how the plot is still motivated by what the characters want.

Badger, Jesse's knucklehead chief dealer, gets busted by an undercover cop (guest star DJ Qualls) -- after falling victim to the urban legend about cops having to identify themselves if asked -- and aspiring but largely clueless criminal masterminds Jesse and Walt have to turn to the city's most prominent sleazebag defense lawyer, the titular Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk, sporting a spectacularly ugly combover) to sort out the mess, which includes Hank trying to pressure Badger to flip on the mysterious Mr. Heisenberg.

When Walt and Jesse don ski masks and try to threaten Saul into getting Badger off without letting him rat on them, Saul asks the question anyone might ask of the drug lords these two claim to be: "Why don't you just kill Badger?"

In a traditional criminal enterprise of the scope that Walt wants to achieve, that'd be the simple answer: much less expensive than the scam Saul eventually puts together for them, and less complicated, too. And you can see Walt -- who, after all, has killed before, and who's been pushing the business expansion -- considering it, where Jesse -- who has yet to kill anyone, and who's been pushed into this by Walt -- will absolutely not have his friend killed, stupid or not. And because Walt needs Jesse -- and because he does, on some level, feel guilty for what he's done to the kid (specifically the Spooge incident), Walt yields, even though it wipes out virtually all of their profits to date.

But having helped them pull off this convoluted plan, Saul tries to insert himself as Tom Hagen to Walt's Vito Corleone, which could be either the best or worst thing to happen to Walt's criminal career to date. Saul knows how to get things done -- or at least gives the appearance that he does -- and could certainly point out all the mistakes we've all noticed Walt and Jesse making, in the same way that Maury Levy on "The Wire" was essentially the third leader of the Barksdale/Bell empire. But he also believes they're soft touches -- and has no idea that Walt killed Emilio and Krazy 8 -- and as Spooge's former lawyer he knows that Jesse's street rep is built on a lie. So he could view them as easy marks to bleed, in the same way (to continue "The Wire" comparison) Clay Davis swindled Stringer Bell.

And whether Saul turns out to be savior or scam artist, there's the larger matter of Hank. I was mistaken when I suggested last week that he would rise high in the El Paso office after surviving the exploding tortoise attack. Clearly, the survivors pointed out that Hank was having a freak-out right before the turtle shell blew, and so he's been sent back to the less dangerous -- but, for Hank, far more comfortable -- environs of Albuquerque. And even though he's still faking his way through the job (his psych-up routine in the elevator looked an awful lot like Jesse standing on Spooge's porch and rehearsing his threats), Hank's not stupid; he sees that something's all wrong with this Jimmy character being Heisenberg. Even if it's unfathomable to him that his goofy brother-in-law without the "experiential overlap" could be the drug lord he's looking for, I doubt he's going to stop looking, and unless Saul is as good as he claims, sooner or later Hank's going to cross Walt's path when Walt doesn't want him to, instead of vice versa.

Some other thoughts on "Better Call Saul":

• The scene where Walt shows up to help talk Hank out of the bedroom was very nicely-played by both Bryan Cranston and Dean Norris (and scripted by Peter Gould). The show keeps doing these moments where it seems like Walt is on the verge of confessing his criminal life to someone (the shrink, Skyler, Hank), and instead he manages to find a version of the truth that somehow doesn't include crystal meth but proves applicable to the situation. Though he's inexperienced at the crime game, in some ways, Saul Goodman could learn a lot from Walt when it comes to BS.

• Another call I was wrong on: that Skank would in some way be able to implicate Jesse in Spooge's murder. Instead, Saul calls it an open and shut case, so either she was so high she forgot "Diesel" was even there at all, or the cops decided it was so obvious she killed him that they didn't much care about her alternate theory of the crime.

• We get a major piece of the Jane puzzle when she tosses Jesse her 18-month sobriety chip. That both explains her initial reticence and her eventual attraction: she knows Jesse is bad for her, but her willpower only goes so far.

• I loved the return of the coin flip as the ultimate decider in any Walt/Jesse dispute. One of my favorite comic scenes from season one was Jesse ranting about the sanctity of the coin flip when they were arguing over who had to kill Krazy 8 and who had to dispose of Emilio.

• Skyler's largely off-screen this week, other than a glimpse of her showing off a lot of pregnant cleavage while preparing for a weekend business meeting with new/old boss Ted. I know there was some speculation last week that the thing with Ted was less sexual harassment than mutual flirtation (if not a full-blown affair); does that outfit send any kind of signal, or would it be logistically challenging for a woman in Skyler's condition to not put the girls on display a little?

• If you haven't already seen it, last week the LA Times had a story about the fake narcocorrido music video that opened "Negro Y Azul."

• James Poniewozik argued that "Breaking Bad" consistently has the best pre-credits sequence of any show on television right now, and I'd have to agree. The undercover sting on Badger was more low-key than things like the narcocorrido song, or all our glimpses of the burned teddy bear, but I admired how, in typical "Breaking Bad" fashion, it took its sweet time getting to the punchline, lingering forever (in a single shot) on Badger letting himself get outsmarted by the cop.

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

In Plain Sight, "In My Humboldt Opinion": Because I got high

Brief spoilers for tonight's "In Plain Sight" coming up just as soon as I place an order at the drivethrough...

"In My Humboldt Opinion" was, in my own humble opinion, a vast improvement on the season premiere. No messing around with mysterious corpses, just Mary doing her actual job, and dealing with one of the many complications of life in WitSec: if you're a criminal, and your emotional well-being has depended on one of the crimes you regularly commit, how do you function when you have Mary telling you to obey the law?

Kevin Rankin is quickly becoming one of those actors whose appearance instantly makes me more interested in whatever he's in, whether it's a good show (as Herc on "Friday Night Lights"), a bad show (as the only interesting part of "Bionic Woman") or in between. Here, he used his Steve Zahn 2.0 qualities to good effect as Jerry the socially anxious pothead. And he made the episode's climax, where Mary found a way around the problem by affixing a Bob's Burger sticker to the witness stand mic, unexpectedly poignant. I always like seeing TV characters be good at what they do, particularly in surprising ways, and so Mary saving the day with unorthodox thinking -- as opposed to just bullying Jerry into testifying -- was a nice touch.

I didn't even mind the Jinx and Brandi material so much this week, because they were used as illustrations for the visiting shrink of just how frantic Mary's life is. When they're working as foils for Mary, I don't hate them as much; it's only when I'm expected to care about either one as an independent character that they become unnecessary distractions. And Raph's also not a huge problem if his appearances are as brief as they were here, where he became the one good thing in Mary's day.

Also, like Stan and Marshall, I'm warming to Eleanor. Anyone who can shut down that jerk from the FBI so easily by reaching out to her old contacts is someone to be reckoned with.

Midway through the episode, I wrote the following note: "Finally! An episode of the show that's actually an episode of the show!" Let's hope we get more of these going forward.

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

Dollhouse, "Haunted": Mostly dead

Quick, incomplete spoilers for last night's "Dollhouse" coming up just as soon as I let my pasta boil just a little longer to spare my teeth...

Confession time up front: about a third of the way into the episode (right after Jordan Bridges kissed Echo), I lost all patience in the A-story and started fast-forwarding through all of the scenes with Echo, Victor and the dead client's family.

Earlier this week, Mo Ryan published an interview with Joss Whedon where he had this to say about "Haunted":

The next episode, "Haunted," is a standalone. It's a quirky little piece with a lot of guest stars. I'm a little nervous about it. I think Eliza's great in it. But I'm wondering, are people going to go, "Now wait a minute, [where's the mythology]?" But it was my decision in the middle of all this [i.e., ongoing stories] to say, "Wait a minute, we can't just be about our own mythology. Let's try this other thing."

I agree with Whedon's point that the show needs to be about more than its mythology. But the problem is, so far, the mythology is the only part of the show that's interesting. Eliza Dushku isn't a versatile enough actress to disappear into these roles the way the script demands, particularly on an episode like "Haunted" where the character is so far outside her usual range of characters. And an episode like this requires us to care about a whole bunch of characters we've never seen before and will never see again, and in the short period before I gave up on it, the script was just dumping tons of exposition on me.

Maybe it got better as it went along. But once it became clear that this story was going to have little to no connection to the larger Dollhouse world -- that, in fact, we wouldn't even see Echo herself at any point -- it became way too easy for me to take advantage of the DVR buffer and just skip ahead to scenes featuring the rest of the cast.

And even there, it was really only the increasingly dark Paul/Mellie scenes that grabbed me. Paul having an actual doll living across the hall and playing at being his girlfriend is both a great situation for him, in that he's finally getting some evidence and support at work that the Dollhouse exists, and awful, in that he has to act like everything's normal in a situation that disgusts him. Paul taking Mellie up on her offer to “give you what you need and let you take it from me” and having some angry sex was about the ugliest scene of the series so far, and well played by Tahmoh Penikett.

Topher turning Sierra into his ideal birthday playmate wasn't as amusing as I think it was intended to be, because I find Topher such a repugnant, annoying character. (Though I did at least appreciate that it seemed to be an entirely platonic thing, and that he wasn't taking sexual advantage of Sierra in the way so many other men do.) And the Adelle material didn't really work because the early expository scenes undermined the idea that this woman was a close friend whose death really upset her.

We're back to the mythology next week, so hopefully the season's final two episodes will be more along the lines of the batch we got before this one. But if the show's going to come back next year, either the paradigm needs to dramatically shift, or the execution of these standalone stories needs to be more interesting.

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

Party Down, "Taylor Stiltskin Sweet Sixteen Party": Alright, alright, alright!

Brief spoilers for tonight's "Party Down" coming up just as soon as I fill my fist with mac 'n cheese...

"You still like me, right?" -Henry
"I do... but, I probably would like you more if you were helping Edgar Allan Poe fight vampires." -Casey

At the moment, "Party Down" is clicking so well that any analysis feels besides the point. This was just an extremely funny episode that made played to the strengths of the entire cast:

• After weeks of playing Henry as a guy who has given up on his dream and is just waiting for a new one, Adam Scott got to play a slightly more hopeful Henry, only to have him crushed again when Leonard Stiltskin recognized him as the "Are we having fun yet?" guy.

• Ken Marino got to do a clever variation of Stoned Guy, as there was a dark and desperate undercurrent: having cleaned up his life for the sake of his career, Ron had to let himself get high to be close enough to pitch Soup R' Crackers to the rapper, and under the influence of pot his knack for saying the wrong thing became worse than ever.

• Lizzie Caplan and Jane Lynch got to play off each other as the most clued-in and most clueless members of the ensemble as Casey and Constance battled for young Taylor's soul, with Casey briefly appearing to win the John Hughes battle when Taylor re-embraced her old loser friends, but Constance ultimately triumphing when the popular kids came to take Taylor away from reality. A brutal, and brilliant, punchline.

• Ryan Hansen and Martin Starr didn't have quite as much to do, but Hansen got to play physical comedy as Kyle tried to score with Leonard's wife without actually kissing her, and Starr got to add new layers of creepy to Roman with the way he tried to hit on one of the 16-year-old party guests, and with the indignant tone to his voice as he said, "I have a prestigious blog, sir!"

Beyond that, we got some terrific guest performances. JK Simmons made Leonard's completely artless swearing sound pretty damned artful, Breckin Meyer did one of the better Matthew McConnaughey impressions I've heard, and Kevin Hart made something new out of the smarter-than-you-expect rapper archetype. Even Joey Adams was fine in the first role I've seen her in since the "Veronica Mars" guest appearance that no doubt led to this one.

Again, I don't have a lot to say, except the most important thing of all for a comedy: "Taylor Stiltskin Sweet Sixteen Party" made me laugh -- a lot.

What did everybody else think? And did the Valhalla Catering uniforms our team had to wear as last-minute replacements look more or less dorky than the traditional pink bow tie uniforms? Click here to read the full post

Parks and Recreation, "The Reporter": Off the record

Quick spoilers for last night's "Parks and Recreation" coming up just as soon as I throw a Scrabble game...

"Parks and Recreation" at this early stage feels like a show that's much more comfortable with its world than its characters.

Though I've never worked in small-town government, I feel like I recognize the way that office works, the way the community interacts with it, and the way that Leslie completely overreacted to the reporter, since hyper-local newspapers like that tend to only run the most innocuous, uncontroversial, even-handed stories possible.

But Leslie is all over the map as a character, and if I don't really understand who she is, it's hard to laugh at how she behaves in different situations. The scene in the diner where the reporter fired one quote after another was, I'm assuming, improvised, in the way that "Scrubs" often will feature scenes that are just an excuse to let Neil Flynn riff. And while Amy Poehler has a strong improv background, it didn't work here, both because she's the main character as opposed to a weird fringe player like the Janitor, and because it just didn't feel like a realistic scene. Like "The Office," this show is trying to build its comedy on top of a very realistic foundation, and while it's possible for characters to behave silly or over-the-top (ala the one genuinely funny moment in the episode, Leslie eating the plant and getting a swollen tongue), you have to believe that this is how the character would act in that moment. And I didn't believe that either Leslie or the reporter would be doing that.

I think there's a show here. I like most of the supporting characters (Ron's speech about why he likes Tom was very nice), and the setting. But just like it took Greg Daniels a while to figure out Michael Scott, I think he and Mike Schur need to spend the hiatus (assuming they get renewed) getting a better handle on who Leslie is.

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

30 Rock, "The Ones": Puerto Rican!

Spoilers for last night's "30 Rock" coming up just as soon as I put a feather in my fedora...

"The Ones" wasn't a classic "30 Rock" episode, and it definitely suffered in comparison to the amazing half-hour of "The Office" that preceded it, but it had more than enough funny things in it to keep me satisfied.

Start with the running gag about Liz's love of the Slanket, that horrific imitation precursor to the Snuggie(*) and her constant excuses for why she was wearing it. (In particular, the very meta, "It's not product placement! I just like it!") Liz wearing a Slanket, eating a plate of cheese and singing a song about it to the tune of "Night Moves," followed by Elisa derisively asking, "Lemon, isn't there a Slanket somewhere you should be filling with your farts?" is just funny. It just is.

(*) Two Snuggie-related points. First, you absolutely must read Joe Posnanski's scene-by-scene breakdown of the original Snuggie commercial if you haven't already, and not just because I shamelessly lifted the footnote format from him. Second, when our daughter was born, my wife was steadfast that, while we'd let her watch TV, we'd try to keep her away from commercials at all costs. And for a long time, we succeeded, sticking primarily to either PBS or Disney Channel (where the only ads are for other Disney shows/movies, which we can deal with). A while back, we stumbled across a few shows on other channels that we liked, including "The Magic School Bus," and we let her watch them in spite of the commercials. Then a few months ago, it's a cold morning and my daughter asks for a blanket. I get it for her, and she says, quote, "This blanket isn't comfortable. I can't move my arms around in it. What if I have to answer the phone?" She had memorized the Snuggie commercial. So, basically, she'll be watching PBS and nothing but from now until she's 18.

Beyond that, while Salma Hayek wasn't used quite as well as in her last few appearances, they did put her in a "What the Frak?!" t-shirt, which, coupled with a poisoned Kenneth blurting out, "My real name is... Dick Whitman!!!," made the episode a kind of paradise for snooty fans of quality TV (like me!).

The Jenna subplot didn't really work for me, other than gags on the side like Kenneth, or the idea of the marginalized male writers banding together as The Pranksmen, which seems the sort of thing a bunch of Harvard-educated comedy writers might think was really cool. Jenna stories need to always have Liz or Jack featured prominently, and/or to put her together with Pete more than they did here, as her insanity's only amusing when contrasted against a relatively normal character. (Though the final scene did mock the infamous "I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy..." scene from "Notting Hill.") Didn't love Tracy's story either, but at least it had Dotcom ranting about Moroccan soccer.

Definitely a "funny forgives a lot" kind of episode. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Broke": Our balls are in your court

Spoilers for last night's "The Office" coming up just as soon as I call my apiarist...

"I have no shortage of company names." -Michael
"Michael..." -David Wallace
"That's one of them." -Michael

I have one quasi-complaint and only one complaint about "Broke," and it has nothing to do with the episode itself, which was superb. I just wish the writers could have found a way to make the Michael Scott Paper Company arc last longer. It was as big of a creative shot in the arm to the series as the arrival of Holly -- probably moreso, in that it affected not only Michael, but the entire core cast. With Pam now a Dunder-Mifflin saleswoman and Ryan returned to the Scranton branch full-time, there should be significant changes to the office dynamic, but I wonder if the show can be quite as daring and unpredictable with Michael back in his old job.

Still, if we knew that Dunder-Mifflin buying out the Michael Scott Paper Company was inevitable, the execution of it -- written by Charlie Grandy and directed (I believe it's his directorial debut) by Steve Carell himself -- was just about perfect.

Charles' dislike of Jim and unreasonable faith in Dwight paid off wonderfully, from the moment David Wallace arrived and said a friendly hello to Jim, through Charles' look of increasing horror at Dwight's bees suggestion, to Jim brilliantly using Charles' hatred of him to keep Dwight from taking away Michael's bargaining position. He never managed to show Charles of his own brilliance, but instead was able to save Pam and Michael (and, though it wasn't his goal, Ryan) by dragging Dwight down to his distrusted level in Charles' eyes -- and managed to set up a Mose reference while he did it. A big day for Big Tuna.

Michael's side of the story, meanwhile, was packed with wonderfully dry gags, like all the Korean women trying to get into the delivery van (can any of our Korean-speaking readers translate what the van inscription actually said?), or Ty the accountant indulging Michael's request to crunch the numbers by doing a keystroke and whispering "Crunch." But it also featured one of those wonderfully honest and dark "Office" moments where the MSPC sales team sat on the floor of their pathetic office and swapped humiliating stories (Pam couldn't get a callback from Old Navy, Target or Wal-Mart, and Ryan only went to Ft. Lauderdale instead of Thailand). Again, the characters on the show have become so rich that the show can do a scene like that that's relatively light on humor and it doesn't feel out of place.

And then... then, my God, the elevator sequence with Michael panicking over whether he could keep his mouth shut about the true state of the MSPC perfectly put me in the same head space as Pam and Ryan. I know Michael about as well as they do after the last five seasons, and I was terrified he wouldn't be able to pull it off. And instead, he kicked ass. He called out David on his precarious position with the shareholders, he got Pam and Ryan (Ryan!) regular sales jobs, and when David tried to call his bluff again, Michael used his own reputation for childish single-mindedness as a weapon, pointing out how easily he could keep hurting Dunder-Mifflin's business in the area if he set his mind to that.

He won. Michael Scott won. And he deserved to. Who would have thought when the series started and Michael was so loathsome, that he could have a moment like this that would be so thrilling?

Great, great episode.

Some other thoughts:

• So it turns out that Michael did try to take advantage of Ryan's business school training. And, just as his plans for Dunder-Mifflin Infinity were a disaster, it turns out that Ryan's command of the fundamentals of economics wasn't as strong as he thought, as he never factored in the need for variable pricing. (Stringer Bell definitely wouldn't have missed that detail.)

• The one advantage of returning to Dunder-Mifflin full-time is that it'll give the supporting cast -- who got a bit lost in the shuffle when we had to spend time in two offices -- more to do. They had a few nice moments here, like Phyllis pointing out that David could have prevented all of this by simply returning Michael's calls, and Kelly doing her impression of what the conference room sounded like through her glass.

• I liked Pam's look of quiet awe when she realized that Michael was able to be that peppy and alert at the crack of dawn despite not drinking any coffee. I myself do not drink coffee, and I wish I could be a self-starter like that.

• Jim puts Dwight saying "Idiot" as his ringtone, and is immediately rewarded by Dwight actually calling him an idiot on the phone. ("This is Dwight, by the way.") Not quite up to the level of Tim on British "Office" constantly calling Gareth a (male chicken) repeatedly on his cell phone, but still amusing.

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

Grey's Anatomy, "Sweet Surrender": The wedding planner

Spoilers for tonight's "Grey's Anatomy" coming up just as soon as I stress eat to hide my pregnancy...

Really, honestly, today's column about the annoying comic music on ABC dramas was going to be a "Why 'Grey's Anatomy' has been much better lately" column, but then two things happened: 1)I didn't find "Sweet Surrender" and next week's episode to be quite as strong as the previous batch; and 2)The number of scenes featuring the Please Laugh Now music was so high that I felt I finally had no choice but to publish a screed about it.

Of course, the number of scenes that someone felt required that music no doubt played into my ambivalence about an episode like "Sweet Surrender," which had a number of very good things and a number of annoying things in it. "Grey's" frequently tells stories that start out wildly comic and then take a turn for the tragic around the 40-minute mark. But if the comedy feels forced -- which it definitely did in the Izzie subplot, and only slightly less so in the Derek/Mark/Lexxie story -- then the shift into the drama doesn't work. Some of that forced quality comes from the damn music, but not all of it, particularly with Izzie the manic wedding planner. (The crazier they make Izzie, particularly funny/crazy, the more grating Katherine Heigl becomes.)

On the other hand, the 100% dramatic Bailey storyline? Killer -- pun quasi-intended. Yes, it's somewhat shameless heartstring-tugging to show Bailey spend an episode hugging a dying little girl, but if they're serious about taking her down this pediatrics route, then they needed to address the way that it's a specialty where the patient deaths hit the hardest. Chandra Wilson has an episode for her Emmy reel now, and she was terrific.

I was also glad to get what feels like the first real George storyline in forever. Sure, he's partly an adjunct to Karev's story, and Hunt's, but we got to see George take a stand on something, feel present for an entire episode, kick ass in surgery, and even know when to pass Alex the beer at the end. I can understand why T.R. Knight might be dissatisfied with the amount and quality of material he's gotten this season, but he delivered when finally called to serve.

There was other good stuff, including Hunt going to see the hospital shrink, Callie ranting in Spanish (and Mark not indulging her) and the Chief looking at Meredith in the wedding dress like the daughter he never had (in an episode that was very much about parenting). But the show had been on a really great roll when it went into reruns a month ago, when I was having a hard time finding fault with any of the episodes. So to see them going back to some of the annoying comedy stuff that was uneven in the show's early days was a little disappointing.

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

ABC renews 12 series for next season

Over at the NJ.com blog, I have news of ABC renewing 12 of their series -- basically, everything but "Scrubs," "Samantha Who?" and the shows that debuted at mid-season -- for next year. Other renewals could come between now and the upfronts in late May, but networks sometimes like to give the good news ahead of time to the series whose fates were a fait accompli (or the ones like "Ugly Betty" and "Private Practice" that were borderline but could use some good publicity). Click here to read the full post

On the subject of 'Reaper'

I realize I haven't written about the last couple of episodes of "Reaper." I watched last week's show in the middle of a very busy week where I simply never found the time to write about it, and I have yet to see this week's, in part because the CW's website isn't streaming it yet and the only time I have to watch it is when I'm in the office.

But for the benefit of the people who've been keeping up more closely, feel free to discuss either one, and go read Fienberg's argument for why the CW might want to renew "Reaper," after all. Click here to read the full post

Scrubs, "My Cuz": Sam he am

Quick spoilers for last night's "Scrubs" coming up just as soon as I make myself a TV critic hat...

It's a pre-requisite of these kinds of victory lap seasons to bring back as many memorable guest stars as possible, so it makes sense that we would see Kim and Sean again, and it's even kind of amusing that JD's baby mama and one of Elliot's two long-term boyfriends would wind up together. That said, Kim is a character the writers struggled to make funny (despite Elizabeth Banks being an actress capable of being very funny) outside of her first appearance and the episode where she gave birth, and while Sean was a more amusing character throughout his run (Scott Foley's equally good at light comedy and "Unit"-style ass-kicking), he didn't really seem like the guy I remember from the early seasons. So other than the introduction of the idea of Wiener Cousins (and the revelation that there are so many Cousins at the hospital), the comedy felt strained. I'm glad to get some closure on those characters, and this presumably sets up JD's exit from the hospital(*), but it could have been better.

(*) Is a 37-minute commute really so terrible? I used to work with a guy who commuted two hours from Bucks County, PA so he could spend time with his son, and he stayed in the job for years.

The Turk/Cox storyline, and Kelso's first dealings with the interns(**) were better, even though there's no way Turk (who's only a year or two out of his surgical residency) would be considered for such a position, even in a hospital as small as Sacred Heart. Cox's disdain for Turk, and Turk's refusal to take no for an answer, are two character traits the show has always used to good comic effect, and it was great to see Bob back in the hospital proper and not just lurking in Coffee Bucks.

(**) Has he met Denise yet? I know Denise has threatened to beat up an old man before, but I can't remember if Bob was the specific old man. Those two would be kindred spirits; if they haven't already had a scene together, I really hope they do before the end.

Only two episodes left, with the May 6 finale running an hour. It's been fun, hasn't it?

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

The 'Lost' clip show: wha happen?

Life's too short for me to watch clip shows, so I skipped over last night's one on "Lost." Anybody who did watch it, feel free to discuss it. Click here to read the full post

Hey ABC, please stop the music - Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I finally expand on a point I've made in several recent "Grey's Anatomy" and "Cupid" reviews: my complete and utter disdain for the wacky You Are Watching Something Funny music that ABC feels compelled to include in comic scenes on almost all of its drama series. Click here to read the full post

American Idol: Top 7 double-elimination

Over at NJ.com, I have tonight's instant "American Idol" results. Feel free to talk about them here, whether the Save did or didn't backfire, how happy and unafraid Young David appeared, and the wardrobe and vocal stylings of the three disco veterans. Click here to read the full post

The Unusuals, "One-Man Band": Murder, incorporated

Quick spoilers for last night's special Tuesday installment of "The Unusuals" coming up just as soon as I drink some milk...

So the tryout after "Dancing with the Stars" didn't go so well, and with tonight's episode airing after a "Lost" clip show, I can only assume the numbers will trend down further. Like "Cupid," this one seems to be living on borrowed time.

And I think I'm okay with that. There are definitely elements of "The Unusuals" that I like -- the wunza partnership between Adam Goldberg and Harold Perrineau, the nuts-and-bolts of policework stories like Casey's favor-swapping mission -- but it has yet to add up into something I'm going to be pained to lose.

I thought the mix of tones was better in this one than the second episode. The wackiness didn't feel forced for the most part. And outside of being completely bored by the story of the cop with the shady past, I like most of the characters. But, again, it hasn't yet developed that extra "it" factor. So I imagine I'll stick it out for however long ABC keeps it on -- hoping that it doesn't get the "Kings" treatment -- but barring some major leap forward in quality, I'll be cool when it's inevitably not on the fall schedule.

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

Fringe, "Bad Dreams": Dude dreams like a lady

Spoilers for last night's "Fringe" coming up just as soon as I sing the score from "Pippin"...

There are actors who need good material -- or material, period -- to be good, and then there are actors who have a kind of unquantifiable presence that allows them to be interesting even when the material's not there. Anna Torv is decidedly not the latter, but episodes like "Bad Dreams" suggest she might be the former.

As a female strong-but-silent Steve McQueen type, Torv just comes across as a blank. Give her something less subtle to play, though, like this episode's depiction of a sleep-deprived, unhinged Olivia, and she's suddenly present. And by making Olivia (or "Olive") a former research subject of Walter and William Bell's(*), we're making her not only more important to the larger mythology of the show, but potentially giving Torv a lot more to play down the road, which is good.

(*) Unmistakably voiced by Leonard Nimoy.

I was a little amused by the girl-on-girl dream with the stripper, both because it's the second time this season that Olivia has been having a man's dreams, and because I couldn't help but think that the "Fringe" writers recently viewed Torv's work as a lesbian on the BBC's "Mistresses" and thought, "Hey, why not? She seems game."

Also somewhat unintentionally amusing is the number of times in the episode that Olivia traveled back and forth from Boston to New York. Because the show is in the weird position of filming in New York but being set elsewhere -- as opposed to shows like "CSI: NY" that are set there but film elsewhere -- it seems like half the cases, and any visits to Blair Brown, wind up taking Olivia and company down to the Big Apple.

On the other hand, they do make good use of New York locations, and the shot of the empath and his potential victims standing on the edge of a roof in the middle of Manhattan was gorgeous (and, of course, terrifying), in the way that most TV shows don't have the time or skill to pull off, or can't because they're faking one city for another. When production moves to Vancouver next year to save money, they won't be able to do something like that that gives away so much of the wrong skyline.

Very good episode. Creepy as both a self-contained story and as part of the Pattern/William Bell/Walter's past arc.

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

That new ballpark of mine

I'm slowly working my way through last night's TV. (I already dropped a few "American Idol" thoughts in the comments on that post.) In the meantime, because several people asked, I want to share some thoughts on my first visit to the new Yankee Stadium. Just as I did with my farewell to the old Stadium, I'm going to suggest that anybody who doesn't care about baseball, and/or the Yankees, just skip down to the next post. We'll get back to TV very shortly, I promise.

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space." -Douglas Adams

The new Stadium is vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big. And yet for the most part, it manages to feel like a bigger, mostly better, version of the old Stadium. By the time my buddy Mike and I had sat down in our seats in left field, we already felt like we'd been coming here for years -- that somehow in the offseason, they had just done a massive makeover to the old girl.

The flaws in the park are obvious, and have been written about extensively elsewhere: Monument Park is more like Monument Cave. The center field restaurant makes the bleacher seats on either side of it the worst views in the house. Because no one can afford the Legends seats, and/or because those who can afford it are afraid to go, the Stadium can become disturbingly quiet even when the Yanks are playing relatively well. And the level of commercialization is obscene, not just with the signage, but with things like playing the "Gotta go to Mo's!" Modell's jingle whenever a Yankee steals a base.

(There are some other more minor kinks that still need working out, as well. For instance, After 9/11, the old Stadium introduced a policy where, other than purses or diaper bags, the only bags allowed in had to be clear plastic. But they always provided clear plastic themselves, so I would just toss my stuff into an A&P bag, go and swap the contents into the one they gave me. Here, the rule's still in effect but they didn't have any clear replacement bags. When I pointed this out to the security guy, he waved over his supervisor, who admitted I had a point and let me in. Of course, this happened several hours before gametime when there wasn't a crowd and everyone was still in a good mood. Who knows what would have happened if I'd showed up at 6:45 p.m. and there were hundreds of people behind me?)

But on the plus side, the thing just looks great. The open concourses, which allow you to keep track of the action while you walk around, are wonderful. While it's inexcusable how much the center field restaurant obstructs the views of the bleacher people, the view from the balcony on top of it is amazing. (It's where I shot the above picture from my camera phone.) And the giant hi-def jumbotron in center field is the greatest television I've ever seen. I'm glad they can't show live game action on it (it'd be distracting to the batters), because I imagine I'd have had a hard time pulling my eyes away to actually look at the field.

Where the old Stadium was infamous for having surly, unhelpful employees, the new one employs a small army of people carrying "How Can I Help You?" signs, and they turned out to actually be helpful. When I was on line to visit the Stadium museum (which is very cool, particularly the statues of Don Larsen throwing to Yogi Berra, and Thurman Munson's preserved locker), I asked one of those people how to find the BBQ stand I'd heard good things about. He didn't know exactly (they're still learning the layout like the rest of us), so he immediately got on his walkie, and within 30 seconds another Helper had come over and they were showing me exactly how to get there on a map.

Speaking of which, all the food that I sampled (including a pulled BBQ chicken sandwich, and garlic fries) was very tasty, if overpriced. (Though the prices didn't seem that much worse than the original Stadium, which was already charging an arm and a leg.)

Some traditions moved from one park to the other. The Bleacher Creatures' roll call is still blessedly alive and well (and Nick Swisher's Elvis-like response to his name cements his position as the greatest Yankee comedy god since Sparky Lyle), and while I've never liked the groundskeepers' "YMCA" dance (not least because nobody who's dancing along seems to know what the song's really about), other people are enthusiastic enough for it that I can deal. And, mercifully, "Cotton-Eye Joe" was not played at any point.

After all the talk of the new park as a launching pad of epic proportions that turns lazy pop flies into home runs, the only homer we saw was a Johnny Damon no-doubter that would have gone into the second deck in any modern park. So we'll see if those first few games were a statistical fluke or if there's something in the construction that nobody accounted for.

The place definitely needs some tweaking in the offseason, but assuming I can afford to go as frequently as I did to the older, cheaper version, it's a place where I could find myself really enjoying both the game and the atmosphere, while still feeling like it's part of the team's history. Click here to read the full post

My Boys, "Decathalon, Part Deux": Games couples play

I watched tonight's "My Boys" a few weeks ago and found it maybe my favorite of the season so far -- I loved the board game decathalon, the guys all being lazy slobs in front of Stephanie, and Kenny's realization that he was trapped on a team with the couple -- but if I stopped to do a lengthier blog post, I wouldn't be able to go to sleep. And I want to go to sleep. So fire away with your own thoughts on Coldplay, curling and the Angola 1992 Olympic basketball team. Click here to read the full post