Sepinwall on TV: Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

With so many shows debuting on Sunday -- including the entire Sunday lineups of ABC, CBS, Fox and Showtime, plus a couple of new HBO comedies -- I took the grab-bag approach to today's column, with quick-hit reviews of "Dexter," "The Simpsons," "Little Britain," "The Life and Times of Tim," "Californication," "The Unit" and "The Amazing Race."

As this is an absurdly busy time for me, the only one of those I'm going to do a separate post on for Sunday night is "Dexter." Feel free to use this post to comment on any or all of the other Sunday product (plus other shows I didn't write up, if you want). Click here to read the full post

Hairy situations

Cable catch-up time, with spoilers on, in order, "Californication," "Saving Grace," "My Boys," "The Bronx Is Burning" and, as promised long ago without fulfillment, "Top Chef," coming up just as soon as I get a plastic surgery consultation...

After last week's kerfuffle over my pan of the "Californication" pilot, I decided to give the show at least one more episode to prove me wrong. Sorry to say, Duchovny fans, but I'm out. This was a retread of all the things I disliked about the pilot (women throwing themselves at Hank with little provocation, Hank acting like a 12-year-old boy in a way we're obviously meant to find charming, an unexpected ongoing focus on pubic hair), and now we've added in the "Studio 60" Problem: we're told Hank's this brilliant writer, but his first blog entry (penned in an Apple product placement scene that makes all the Mac love on HBO seem tasteful and subdued) was a smarmy cliche-fest. I'm glad for showkiller Paula Marshall that she's kept herself in such good shape, but I don't think I need to see any more "Californication." I think it would be a badly-written show with any leading man, but maybe a different actor would be able to find the appealing side of Hank instead of playing him as a one-note, self-satisfied douche. I really like the actress who plays his daughter and look forward to her popping up in something else.

As a counterexample to Duchovny on "Californication," I give you Holly Hunter on "Saving Grace." Here's another self-destructive, substance-abusing, middle-aged person who sublimates her pain by having lots of sex with her many willing suitors, but I both like her and understand her appeal to the opposite sex (even though Holly Hunter herself needs to spend a few weeks following Dr. Nick's steady gorging process, combined with assal horizontology). That's a credit to Hunter's performance. There's a thin line between charming rogue and irritating jerk; she stays on the right side of it in a way that Duchovny can't or won't.

That said, I'm falling out of love with "Saving Grace" as a whole, thanks to the police stuff. There's a weird epidemic going on in TV right now -- both with current series and a lot of the fall pilots -- of cop shows with interesting, original leads and completely uninspired procedural stories. I understand that cop shows are more instantly commercial, which is why Grace or, say, that immortal guy from "New Amsterdam" carry a badge and gun, but the genre's so oversaturated right now that almost no one can find anything original to do with the cases. The Oklahoma setting provides a small amount of novelty -- not going to see a story about bull seed on "Cold Case," I don't think -- but not enough to keep me from zoning out until Grace heads to the bar or her love shack.

Good casting in the latest episode of Frances Fisher as the cool aunt Grace has modeled herself after, but did I miss a previous reference to her father having died in the Oklahoma City bombing? I know she lost her sister (or sister-in-law?), but this seemed like new info.

Speaking of potentially new info (or yet another example of how I need to pay closer attention), "My Boys" revealed for the first time (maybe) that Kenny runs a sports memorabilia shop, which answers the final question of how PJ knows all her boys. (Andy's her brother, Brendan and Stephanie went to school with her, Bobby's a rival beat writer and Mike used to work for the Cubs.) Mike and Kenny are funny as usual together, and the "negotiation" at the bar managed to work Gaffigan into their dynamic nicely. Didn't care much about the Jeremy Sisto romance subplot (though it did make me listen to a sample of "The Wrong Girl" just because it was on a mix tape between my beloved Fountains of Wayne and the Flaming Lips), and we the beginnings of the douchey Brendan storyline that's going to pay off nicely next week.

The writers of "The Bronx Is Burning" are lucky the cops caught Son of Sam as relatively early as they did, since it gave them an excuse to dump that subplot with a few episodes of the miniseries left. The show works much better as an all-baseball affair (like I said at the start, either they needed to cover all the stuff from Mahler's book or just the Bombers), even if the Reggie/Billy/George dynamic is feeling repetitive by this point. Two complaints about the first World Series episode: 1)I love "Blitzkrieg Bop" as much as the next guy, but it feels like they've already played it 57 times so far. The Ramones' catalog is consistent (simplistic?) enough that you can substitute a lot of other songs and get the same effect. 2)How in the world do you incorporate so much of the Howard Cosell/Keith Jackson telecast of game two and not include Cosell saying "Ladies and gentleman, the Bronx is Burning"?

Finally, I've been watching "Top Chef" all season, but often so many days late that a blog entry has seemed beside the point. (A big part of the problem: the show inevitably makes me very hungry, and I don't want to be snacking at 10:30 at night, so I have to wait until I can see each show close to a mealtime.) I've been enjoying it a lot and wish I had started with the franchise sooner. (Though I hear season two was very skippable.) All the "Bizarro Apprentice" stuff I admire about franchise sibling "Project Runway" (competent contestants, creative challenges, rational judges), only with a subject I care about.

That said, this show tends to telegraph its exits even more blatantly than latter-day "Survivor." Anytime two contestants declare their undying friendship (in this case, Casey and Tre), you know one of them's out. Tre compounded the sledgehammer foreshadowing with all his overconfidence, and by the time we were halfway through the judges' visit to Restaurant April, I knew he was done. He had been the obvious frontrunner early on, but he'd been through a lot of ups and downs and was clearly the main reason for this loss. If, as the judges have said elsewhere, the judging isn't supposed to be cumulative, he was the right choice. (If not, CJ should have been tossed.) It's interesting, though, that the remaining field includes a few people who have consistently been either brilliant or awful (Hung, to a lesser extent Howie) and then a bunch of people who have had some good moments and some bad ones, but nothing really remarkable on either end. Usually in this kind of show, there's a more obvious pecking order by this stage, and I honestly can't tell who's going to win, or who should.

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

The root of all evil

Quick round-up time, with spoilers for, in order, "My Boys," "Big Love" and "The Kill Point" -- plus a venue for people to talk about the "Weeds" and "Californication" premieres if they want -- coming up just as soon as I go help my roommate with a problem...

After last week's debacle (which inspired a long morning-after rant from one of my female sportswriter friends), "My Boys" was back in good form this week with stories of a rich man (Bobby) and a poor woman (Stephanie). A bunch of funny moments, some from characters you expect to be funny (Andy's "When did you become Burt Reynolds?" or Mike and Kenny tag-teaming the marble urinal), some from characters you don't (PJ and Stephanie speed-reading the parking signs). And was I the only one who took Bobby's look at Kenny at the end as confirmation that the Chelsea Clinton story was real?

Keeping with my pledge to check in with "Big Love" from time to time before the end of season two, I find myself having the usual reactions: the Henrickson marital dynamic is interesting (albeit played a little broadly here with Margene's weepy reaction to the "secretary" business), while I start to mentally check out whenever we spend time with all of the two-dimensional Juniper Creek characters like Alby, Rhonda or Bill's parents. (Joey and Wanda aren't my favorites, either, but at least the writers allow them -- and, I suppose, Nicki's mom -- shadings that the rest of the Juniper Creek people never get.) I understand that the contrast between the Henricksons' assimilated life and life back on the compound is an integral part of the show, but it feels like they play the same notes over and over. I'm not sad to see Roman go (if indeed he's going), but the petty Alby's not much of an improvement. More interaction between the wives (like Margene negotiating "control" of Weber Gaming with Barb) and less of Alby and Rhonda ruining other people's lives just because they can, please.

The first half of this week's "Kill Point" was overflowing with monologues that I'm sure seemed impressive on the page (Omar the sniper's thing about the unfired bullet, Mr. Sabian talking about his relationship with his son) but just seemed pretentious dropped into the middle of what's largely been an unapologetic B-movie thriller. Things perked up in the second half, thankfully, with the hostages nearly pulling off the coup; that was real edge-of-the-seat time (as the phone kept ringing, I was on the verge of shouting at the screen for the idiot bank manager to answer it and tell the cops to breach ASAP). We're in the home stretch now and it's going well.

Based on the comments yesterday, I'm expecting even more dissent on my dislike of "Californication." Feel free to discuss it and the "Weeds" premiere (and only the premiere, as I know the first four episodes leaked onto the 'Net) here. Click here to read the full post

David Duchovny, why don't I love you?

Today's column offers reviews of "Californication" (which is awful) and "Weeds" (where I continue to feel left out of the awesomeness that so many other critics see):

"Californication" (10:30 p.m., Showtime) is a comedy that pretends to be about one Hollywood cliché -- the serious writer who sells his soul to show business -- when it's a different one entirely: the aging star's massive ego trip.

In his first TV series since "The X-Files," David Duchovny plays Hank Moody, an author whose dour debut novel "God Hates Us All" was purchased for an obscene amount of money by a movie studio, which turned it unto an upbeat Tom-and-Katie-starring romantic comedy called "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." Since then, Hank has suffered a crippling case of writer's block -- "I can't produce so much as a (gosh-darn) predicate," he complains -- compounded by the realization that he was an idiot to walk out on longtime girlfriend Karen (Natascha McElhone) and their daughter Becca (Madeleine Martin, far better than the show deserves).

Before you go and throw a pity party for poor Hank, know that he's found a unique way to suffer for his sins: by having cheap, meaningless sex with every surgically-enhanced L.A. woman who'll have him. Judging by the pilot episode's frequent nude scenes (which resemble outtakes from Duchovny's last Showtime series, the softcore anthology "Red Shoe Diaries"), it's a long list. Added to it is Mia, who takes Hank to bed after a meet-cute in a bookstore and spices up their fun, sexy time by repeatedly punching him in the face.

On "Weeds":

"Californication" debuts immediately after the return of "Weeds" (10 p.m., Showtime), which three seasons in remains a show I want to like much more than I do. It has so much going for it on paper -- notably Mary-Louise Parker as a pot-dealing soccer mom -- but the series' creators remain so pleased with themselves that they're rarely as funny as they obviously think they are.

To read the full thing, click here. (Printer-friendly.) Click here to read the full post