I'll stop the world and melt with you

Time for a round-up of thematically-unrelated weekend programming. Spoilers for, in order, "Doctor Who," "Kill Point," "Entourage" and "Big Love" coming up just as soon as I play a few rounds of pub trivia...

I realize that the current incarnation of "Doctor Who" has certain episodes it has to do each year: a trip to pre-20th century England, a trip to New Earth, the Daleks show up, etc. I just hadn't realized that "trapped on a spacecraft orbiting a dangerous spatial anomaly while members of the crew become possessed killing machines" was one of them. If "42" wasn't a direct remake of last season's two-parter with the Ood and the Satan pit, it was a little too close for comfort. ("New Earth" and "Gridlock," to pick another pair of same-locale episodes, felt very different.) There were some nice moments here and there -- the Doctor's silent "I will save you!" screams as Martha's pod jettisoned, the Doctor's fear of being possessed (and him trying to explain regeneration to Martha), and Martha finally saving the day and being rewarded with a TARDIS key -- but I like my time and space travel with a touch more variation. (Also, as others have pointed out, watching this one with commercial interruptions wasn't much fun; even though I could fastforward with the DVR, it really interrupted the flow.)


The penultimate "Kill Point" had some problems, notably the cheesey, '80s TV show production quality-level gun battle in the tunnel, where of course the only people who were going to get shot and killed were the two redshirts from the platoon. Can't do with bumping off a significant character before the end game, can we? Also, the razor product placement was one of the clumsier bits of its kind I've seen in a while. (Maybe I just noticed it more because Spike sent out samples of its razors with the original DVD screener; become a TV critic, boys and girls, and you too can live this glamorous lifestyle!) I'll reserve judgment beyond that until we see how the two-hour finale plays out. When you have a show that's almost all plot, the payoff's going to matter a lot more than on, say, "Big Love." All I know is that Omar the Sniper better get involved at some point, because while I won't complain about Michael K. Williams getting a paycheck, I'm going to feel awfully teased by his presence if he's just window-dressing.


After a few weeks of even lamer-than-usual celebrity fantasy camp hijinks, "Entourage" gets back to the business of show, with Ari being directly involved in Vince's career in the first time since forever, E's second client distracting him from his first, Walsh causing headaches for everyone, etc. On paper, that sounds much better, but the execution was as lacking as it's been on everything of late. The plot with E and Anna Farris' boyfriend could have been a great opportunity to show why Eric's useful as a manager beyond being BFFs with Vince, but he was beyond clumsy in solving that problem. Why not show him figuring out how to successfully push the boyfriend's buttons to get him to lay off Anna? Oh, that's right: because the plot isn't really about E the manager at all, but setting up some kind of lame romantic tension between him and Anna by getting the boyfriend out of the picture as quickly and rudely as possible. And for the 7,000th time, Walsh is a complete lunatic and yet everything works out fine for Vince and company. I know it's just masochism to expect anything else from the show by now -- wish-fulfillment is what they do, and the only thing they're interested in doing -- but I'm barely even amused by Ari's plate-spinning anymore because I know nothing's going to get broken.

Speaking of plates being spun, there's quite a lot of china in jeopardy as "Big Love" zooms towards next week's season finale. As I've said before, I find Alby and the rest of the Juniper Creek crew too cartoonish and two-dimensional to make interesting villains, and as with my hopes that Vince and E might lose on occasion are pointless, so too is my hope that this show might ever leave those characters far behind. (I see that Alby's keeping Roman alive, albeit sedated, for reasons unknown. Does he fear eternal punishment should he murder his daddy?) It is what the show is, unfortunately for me.

But stories like last night's wedding scandal are, too, and they're the reason I stick around. (That and my wife's fierce devotion to the show.) It was an outstanding bit of casting (both for acting chops and genetic resemblance) to bring in Ellen Burstyn as Barb's disapproving mom, and I liked watching her presence at the wedding bring up all kinds of wounds from every branch of the family: Margene resents being viewed as a baby-maker by Barb, Nicki resents Barb's constant angling to get out of the principle, Sarah bluntly tells Bill that she will never pay attention to anything he has to say on the subject of relationships, Barb's family judges her left and right, no one seems able to penetrate Ben's two-for-the-price-of-one adolescent horniness. A lot of outstanding performances all around, but particularly by Jeanne Tripplehorn and Amanda Seyfried.

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

Flight of the Conchords: Everyone eats at Mel's

I'll get to the other weekend stuff later, but I wrote so much about "Flight of the Conchords" that I felt it deserved its own post. Spoilers coming up just as soon as I finish up my cool ideas list...

First of all, apologies to anyone offended by my, um, alteration of the above photo (the blue dot's a tribute to "I'm With the Band"), but I wanted to find a way to include it without further ruining my attempts to soften my NC-17 rating. That sketch was disturbing, it was riveting, it was hilarious, it was Mel. And our first Mel-centric episode was a winner, with her presence overriding the show's usual problems with episodes about Bret and Jemaine dating.

There was the usual silliness on the margins -- Daryl Hall randomly hosting the world music-fest (and shutting down the guys in mid-song when it became obvious they don't play world music), Dave living with his parents and loaning Jemaine one of his mother's blouses (plus the awful mouse shirt), Murray having a piece of straw in his mouth during the final band meeting, Murray being completely oblivious about his e-mail and webcam shenanigans, etc. -- but Kristen Schaal was the star. Oftentimes, characters that broad only work in small doses, but I was laughing throughout, even as we revisited a lot of familiar Mel topics (how she destroyed Doug's career, for instance). Loved her going on and on to Bret about how she respects their boundaries and then immediately unlocks the bathroom door so she can watch him pee.

I do have one small concern about the threesome plot. On the one hand, Bret and Jemaine arguing about who should do it and why was funny, and as I said in my "Superbad" review yesterday, funny covers for a lot of sins. At the same time, though, Bret's eagerness to get to business time with a lady he just met flies in the face of his sexual skittishness back in the wingman episode. I don't want to be Comic Book Guy or the kid who complains that the same bone in Scratchy's rib cage played two different tones, but part of what makes this show work is its weird internal logic; if the characters' behavior starts bending and twisting to fit the needs of each script, the scripts will eventually suffer for it. I was okay with it here, but don't do it too often, you know?

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

These kids today

So I haven't watched "Entourage" yet, but will be reviewing "Conchords," "Kill Point," "Doctor Who" and maybe one or two other things later this morning. In the meantime, today's column looks at the ginormous audience for "High School Musical 2," plus very brief reviews of HBO's "As You Like It" and Fox's "Anchorwoman." Click here to read the full post

At the Movies: Superbad

I couldn't let my Summer of Apatow go by without hitting "Superbad" on the opening weekend, could I? Brief spoilers coming up just as soon as I scratch somebody's back...

I don't know that I have much to add beyond the conventional wisdom surrounding the movie, whether the good (it's explosively funny at many points, Michael Cera proves "Arrested Development" was no fluke for him, the kid playing McLovin is a real find) or the bad (the female characters are two-dimensional at best, and the movie's too long, with the non-McLovin sections in the second half in particular need of a trim).

But the first item on the Good list is really all that matters, isn't it? I got the hiccups pretty early in the movie (I think it was around the time of the flashback to Seth's, um, drawing problem), and ordinarily when that happens, I'm able to recover by pausing to take five or six really deep breaths. Problem was, the movie kept making me laugh; I'd guess I was hiccupping for at least 20 minutes straight, and came close to respiratory failure when the cops (wonderfully played by Rogen and Bill Hader) argued about cock-blocking McLovin. Funny forgives a lot of other sins in my book.

Someone tell me if I caught all the members of the Apatow Repertory Players in this one: Jonah Hill and Rogen, obviously, Carla Gallo as the bleeding girl, Kevin Corrigan as the angry party host, Krumholtz and Martin Starr as two of the cokeheads who make Evan sing and, in a neat surprise, Steve "Kowchevski" Bannos once again playing a crabby math teacher. Did I miss anybody?

"Superbad" doesn't exactly invite deep analysis, plus I promised to take my daughter to the science museum, so I'll leave it to you guys to discuss. What did everyone else think? Click here to read the full post

Jekyll: I scream, you scream...

Spoilers for the third (or fourth, depending on your POV) installment of "Jekyll" coming up just as soon as I buy a new TV set...

Moffat's experiments with time continue as the bulk of the episode is devoted to the history of Tom Jackman and his hairy-armed alter ego. Even the present-day framing scenes are all about the question of Tom's origins.

Moffat wrote "Coupling," so he obviously knows his way around the romantic comedy aspects of Tom and Claire's early courtship. ("What do you do?" "Rich men... Sorry. It's a joke... Sorry.") I also continue to be impressed by Gina Bellman's non-Jane-ness, particularly when she's being flirty and having blunt conversations about sex, though that's mostly because I'd never seen her do anything else before this. (To use the obvious "Friends" comparison, Lisa Kudrow's proved she can do a lot more than Phoebe.) And in the present-day, she had the awesome coffee-tossing moment, so I'm a large fan of hers right now.

While not much is accomplished in the Peter/Miranda Callendar scenes other than establishing what Tom isn't, the flashbacks are an essential component to the larger story. Given what's coming, we need to be invested in Tom and Claire's relationship, and we also needed a broader view of how Tom started becoming Hyde. It's a bridge chapter, but a necessary one, and an entertaining one.

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

Ask, and ye shall receive...

From an HBO press release that just went out:

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 17, 2007 - HBO has renewed the hit comedy series ENTOURAGE for a fifth season and FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS for a second season, it was announced today by Carolyn Strauss, president, HBO Entertainment.
Currently debuting new episodes back-to-back on Sunday night (10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), both series conclude their current season Sept. 2, and will return with new episodes in 2008.

"ENTOURAGE is a full-fledged cultural phenomenon, and FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS has quickly become a show to watch," said Strauss. "I'm delighted that we'll be bringing new seasons of these distinctive series to our subscribers."

Me so happy. Me want to cry. ('Bout the "Conchords" half, anyway; I'll deal with the continuation of "Entourage" if it gives me more Bret and Jemaine.) Click here to read the full post

Mad Men: I don't want to be a Dick

Spoilers for episode five of "Mad Men" coming up just as soon as I hit the newsstand...

"Who is Donald Draper?"

That is indeed the question, young Adam Whitman, and will no doubt continue to be the central narrative pillar of "Mad Men." The show's not much on plot, but the mystery of Don's true identity -- not just his birth name, which we now know, but how and why he is who he is -- is a lot more interesting than any procedural cop story I watched in all the fall pilots.

In an episode where Jon Hamm has a lot of great moments, I think my favorite may be right at the end. Don's returned from paying off his brother to go away forever and is completely out of sorts. Betty tells him, "I want to talk to you about something, and I don't want you to get upset," and the look on his face is priceless, because there's such a long list of potential secrets Betty could have uncovered: the Dick Whitman thing, Midge, Rachel Menken, etc. No wonder Don's big brainstorm for their banking client was the secretive "Executive Account" -- if ever a man needed such a thing, it's Don, who has so much going on behind the scenes that his secretary assumes she's covering for one scandal (Midge) when it's something else entirely (Adam).

Though we now know for sure that the Dick Whitman incident on the train in episode three wasn't a case of mistaken identity, there's still a lot here that remains unclear. Did Dick/Don fake his death, or did Adam and the family just assume he was dead when he didn't come home after Korea? Is there identity theft going on, or just Don escaping the shame of his family, whatever that is? How long ago did he leave? Adam makes reference to seeing Dick/Don in his uniform, after his "death," when Adam was only 8. We know Don's service was in Korea (I have that straight from the creator's mouth, and there's a more explicit reference to it in an upcoming episode), which would put it less than a decade in the past, but Adam's clearly not a teenager. So either I misheard, the line was a continuity error, the producers mistakenly believed Jay Paulson could pass for 18, or something more complicated is going on.

Regardless, Adam is quite a bit younger than Don. He almost certainly can't have been involved in whatever horrible thing "mom" and "Uncle Mac" did to Don, is in fact so young that he doesn't seem to comprehend that something awful happened. So unless Don is keeping his old identity a secret for reasons beyond shame, his unsolicited payoff seems especially cruel. Maybe necessary, but cruel.

Meanwhile, I was inordinately delighted by the subplot about Kenny (who?) (exactly!) getting a short story published in The Atlantic Monthly, which promptly causes all the other young guys in the office to react like the high school prom queen realizing on her first in college that she's no longer the hottest girl around. Pete -- who just last week felt emasculated by the wealth and influence that comes with his family -- mocks Kenny as a nobody with a salesman for a father. Paul, pretentious, Orson Welles-impersonating Paul, can't believe an account rep (not a man from "creative") could accomplish such a thing, is taken aback that the premises for Kenny's two novels don't sound awful, then goes on a rant about all the brilliant ideas he has locked away in his oversized melon, like the one about "this crazy night I ended up in Jersey City with all these negroes and we all got along. Can you imagine how good that story is?" (Based on that logline, Paul? Probably not. Could be the premise for a Chris Tucker movie, for all I know.)

After going to great lengths last week to make Pete a sympathetic figure (as I said, to explain, if not apologize for him), the writers are back to using him as the selfish, tunnel-visioned little rat he was early on. Sending your wife back to see the ex-fiance who still holds a torch for her -- and guilting her into it by claiming it would "help make up for" her losing her virginity to that guy instead of Pete -- all to keep up with the Kennys of the world? Wow.

Last week, commenter Anthony Foglia asserted that the episode was the best so far: "One major benefit was that, unlike all the other episodes, it wasn't a particularly dated story. The time merely enhanced the drama, as opposed to being the root cause of it." That description applies to this subplot, and to much of the episode. The petty professional jealousy story translates easily to today -- though the achievement in question no doubt would have involved getting a short film into Sundance, or getting a million hits on the YouTubes or something you young people do. (Get off my lawn! Rarrr!) I can't speak to the Don stuff too much, simply because we don't know all the details of how and why he stopped being Dick Whitman, but there wasn't a lot of Frankeinstein-esque "Sixties baaaad!!!! Bread gooooood!!!" going on.

What did everybody else think?

Click here to read the full post

Freaks and Geeks Rewind: Smooching and Mooching

Spoilers for the "Freaks and Geeks" episode "Smooching and Mooching" coming up just as soon as I drop the needle on some Gene Krupa...

And here is where it becomes obvious that Apatow, Feig and company could see the cancellation writing on the wall, as they go ahead and do an episode where Sam gets to date Cindy Sanders.

This was actually something the writers had in the back of their heads from the start, but for a hypothetical second season, where one of the story arcs would be Sam falling in with the popular crowd and distancing himself from Bill and Neal. When they realized that there would be no second season, the arc got moved up and squeezed into two episodes while there was still time to do it, with this first one the giddy rush (sort of) and "The Little Things" the cold reality.

Back in the post for "Girlfriends and Boyfriends," a few commenters complained that Sam getting to date Cindy seemed like something that came from the network (it wasn't), and that they couldn't buy Cindy jeopardizing her social standing by going out with a geek. I'm okay with it, for a few reasons. First, Sam had been established as less blatantly geeky than Neal or Bill, and someone who the popular kids didn't automatically mock. (Alan did, but he was just as much of an outcast in his own way.) Todd liked him, for instance. Second (and somewhat tied to the first), Cindy hadn't been depicted in the past as someone who felt uncomfortable being seen with Sam, whether it was dancing him at Homecoming (remember, he asked her to dance in full view of several of her friends) getting a bite to eat with him at the fast food joint, etc. It probably would have worked a little better if the storyline had been allowed to progress at its intended pace, but it doesn't feel completely out of left field, either.

Anyway, on to recapping..

So Cindy and Todd have the break-up that Sam's been rooting for, and after once again using Sam as her shoulder to cry on, Cindy decides to give the poor kid a shot. As she explains to ex-lab partner Bill -- her go-between to get Sam to ask her out, since it's not cool for her to do it directly -- "It's like I never date nice guys. I should try it. I think I deserve to." (That line, by the way, is the other reason I totally buy this development. Cindy's not interested in Sam himself; it's the idea of Sam that seems appealing to her while she's on the rebound.)

The moment he's been dreaming about forever (or, at least, since the pilot) has finally arrived, and now Sam's so scared of it that he accuses Bill of lying to him as a cruel joke. Bill insists he's not, and Sam psyches himself up for a very long walk down the hall (bridging the large social gap between the geeks and the popular kids). In the usual halting, puppy dog affect he takes on whenever he's around Cindy, he asks, per her instructions to Bill, "I was wondering... do you want to come to Mona's party with me?" To his great relief and astonishment, she says, "I'd love to." Having achieved his goal, Sam doesn't know what to do next, so Cindy -- clearly enjoying her role as the dominant partner -- leans in and kisses him on the mouth.

Sam continues to panic about not being up to Cindy's high standards. He asks Lindsay for kissing advice; she's pleasantly surprised at the news that Cindy wants to date him, and assures him he'll know what to do when the moment arrives. "She's the lucky one," Lindsay says. "Be a gentleman and don't be weird, and don't smother her." (Even Sam's smart enough to realize that Lindsay's listing all the things Nick didn't do; as Lindsay admits, "Nick was so into me he made me want to move to a different country.")

Sam's fear only grows the next day at lunch, when the other geeks explain that Mona's party is a make-out party. As I've said before, geeks + romantic advice = gold, and here we get Bill ranting about the grossness of French kissing ("Hello? Germs, spit, mucus, old bits of food? I mean, why do you have to use your tongue, anyway?... What are you supposed to do, lick the inside of her mouth? Lick her teeth?"), Gordon explaining that he's saving his virginity "for the future Mrs. Crisp" (Gordon has a real gift for putting a positive spin on anything), and Harris passing on a chance to go the party because he has a date with Judith and "Every night's a make-out party with us."

(In a deleted scene that foreshadows the direction this story will go in with "The Little Things," Sam asks Cindy if Bill and Neal can come to the party; her lip curls like she's just been asked to eat something out of the trash, but she reluctantly says yes.)

Neal decides to give Bill a Spin the Bottle tutorial (and there are no special effects involved; Samm Levine took that bottle home to practice with it for hours), and Bill admits his aversion to kissing has nothing to do with hygiene, but with his very prescient fear that girls won't want to kiss him. He'd rather not go to the party than see a girl look disappointed (or worse) if Bill's bottle points at them. Neal tries to reassure him, and in a funny ad lib (Levine forgot the line, but his flub was funnier than what had been written), answers Bill's question about whether people French kiss during the game by saying, "Some do. Most don't. I do." This then leads to our first Bob Seger montage of the evening, as the geeks get ready to the tune of "Katmandu": Bill obsessively brushes his teeth and experiments with tongue positions in the mirror, Sam ponders fashion disasters like a clip-on tie and the Parisian night suit, and, in maybe the funniest (and/or creepiest) thing Samm Levine ever did on the show, Neal emerges from his bathroom in a smoking jacket, holding a brandy snifter and trying to act all Hugh Hefner for the benefit of Morty the ventriliquist's dummy, whom he proceeds to kiss.

At Mona's party (after Neal removes his dickie so he and Bill won't both be wearing turtlenecks), Cindy welcomes them wearing a bright pink angora sweater (it's a fashion choice I haven't been able to take seriously since I saw "Ed Wood") and again takes charge in the relationship, saying nice things to Sam that are designed to make him return the compliment. Neal and Bill, meanwhile, enter the party basement and all of Neal's bravado vanishes, as he compares their situation to the opening scene in "Animal House" where Pinto and Flounder keep getting sent to the room with the Indian and the blind guy. (Bill: "Blind guys are cool. They have supersonic hearing.")

As Neal predicted, there's a Spin the Bottle game, and to Sam's dismay, the bottle keeps landing on Cindy, no matter who's spinning. One couple kisses a third time, and they have to go into the laundry room for Seven Minutes in Heaven (foreshadowing!). When Cindy takes a nervous Sam off for a walk, Neal and Bill take their places in the circle, and to the tune of Warren Zevon's brilliant "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," all of Neal's fingertip control disappears, as his bottle keeps landing on Bill, even after he forces Bill to change spots in the circle. Bill, meanwhile, keeps spinning the bottle at Neal's beloved Vicki Appleby, who responds with exactly the level of disdain Bill had feared. (First she makes him kiss her hand, then peck her cheek.) To Vicki's disgust, Bill's fear and the crowd's amusement, Vicki's bottle lands on Bill and they have to go for Seven Minutes in Heaven. Vicki barks at a miserable Bill that they should "just get this over with."

Cindy and Sam, meanwhile, are upstairs. Sam remains at Defcon 1, but he's trying his best, first suggesting they pick a bedroom to "talk or something," then putting on the radio in search of some good make-out music, and finally asking Cindy for permission to kiss her; she smiles and says, "Of course." (It's a move that also worked for Ken in "The Garage Door." Maybe Daniel shouldn't trash talk it so much.) They finally have a real kiss, and then Cindy once again establishes that she wears the pants in this relationship by shoving Sam down onto the bed and turning off the light. The last thing we see is an expression of pure terror on Sam's face. Poor Sam's built the idea of dating Cindy up so high that he can't enjoy it even at this early stage. (Also, Cindy's kinda scary like this.)

Things aren't going much better at first for poor Bill, who's trying to suffer through his time with Vicki by making pointless commentary about fabric softener, only to have Vicki continually bark warnings at him. Finally, he loses it and tells her, "You're a jerk! I was just trying to make small talk! I couldn't be less happy to be in here with you! So quit acting like I want to kiss you!" Vicki, like Alan before her, is revealed to be a bully (of a different stripe) who hasn't completely lost her humanity, and she can tell how badly she's hurt Bill. She apologizes, and when he asks her what it's like to be pretty, she laughs and says she's always looked like this, so she doesn't know. Bill suggests that people treat her nicer because she's pretty, "'Cause they're never nice to me."

Vicki's heart grows three sizes and she points out that Bill always seems to be having a good time when she notices him, and asks what he's always laughing about. "I watch movies in my head," Bill explains, and the next thing we know, she's laughing uproariously as he quotes the "He hates these cans!" scene from "The Jerk." (Keep this in mind when we get to "The Little Things.") As Seger's "You'll Accomp'ny Me" soars on the soundtrack, Vicki studies Bill and, now that they've bonded a little, decides to cut him a break. She swears him to silence and then moves in on him for some serious make-out action. These McKinley cheerleaders are surprisingly aggressive, as well as geek-friendly, aren't they? (Speaking of the Vicki-Alan thing, I bought her willingness to kiss Bill in secret more than I bought Alan's closeted geekdom; given the reaction the last time, I imagine I'm going to get a few dozen comments calling this scene lame wish-fulfillment.)

While Sam is finally getting together with the object of his heart's desire (whether he's enjoying it or not), Lindsay has to deal with Nick -- who very clearly still desires her -- taking up semi-permanent residence on the Weir couch.

Nick comes home from a garage sale with Ken and discovers that his father has sold nearly all of his 29-piece drum kit (the stool and a few cymbals are lying askew on the basement floor), having grown tired of both the noise pollution and what he felt was a drain on Nick's schoolwork. Nick tries to stand up to the old man, but Mr. Andopolis shuts him down repeatedly (if you thought Kevin Tighe sounded contemptuous of Locke and Sawyer on "Lost," wait'll you hear him say "End of conversation" to Nick over and over), and when it becomes clear that his dad won't at least give him the money from the sale, Nick moves out.

Thus begins his odyssey in moocher-dom. First he crashes on Daniel's floor, but he gets a crick in his neck and, besides, Mrs. Desario bans him after Nick neglects to flush the toilet. (Maybe Nick got confused on the whole "If it's yellow, keep it mellow..." theory of conservation.) Ken's dad is too uptight to allow guests ("He doesn't even let my grandma stay over"), Kim's haunted house is clearly out of the question, and Lindsay tries to cut off any suggestion of him staying with her family. (Ken: "Nice try, though, Nick. What you should have done was, you should have pretended to cry.")

But if there's one thing all the freaks have learned by now, it's that the Weirs, together and individually, are such nice people that you can manipulate them to get what you want, especially in an emergency, and so Nick shows up at dinnertime and praises Jean's cooking until she invites him to join them. After faking (or maybe not) a major food orgasm over Jean's pot roast, Nick gets back to wheedling his way into the Weir's hearth and home by asking if Harold's store sells sleeping bags, since, you know, he's homeless right now. Lindsay tries to interrupt the pity party by noting that Nick moved out, and when Nick explains that his dad sold his drums because he felt they were interfering with his schoolwork, Harold begins to look at his daughter's goofy ex-boyfriend in a new light. "How are you doing at school?" he asks. "Terrible," Nick admits. To Lindsay's shock and dismay, Harold invites Nick to sleep on their couch.

After another scene, ala "The Garage Door," where Daniel and Kim respectively tell Nick and Lindsay how to either get back together or stay apart (Kim: "If he tries to give you a foot massage, run"), we return to the Weir house for Quiet Homework Hour, which Nick proceeds to disrupt by blasting "Tom Sawyer" at full volume on Lindsay's stereo. Harold complains that Nick ought to be doing his homework, and in a way that manages to be both strict and yet fair (I hope I'm half this good when my daughter becomes a teenager), cuts through all of Nick's excuses and says he should be working harder. (It's maybe the most persuasive "In my day..." speech I've ever heard.) He calls Nick smart -- clearly the first such compliment he's gotten from an authority figure in years, if ever -- and, as an aside, says that the drummer from Rush is terrible. Nick, as you'd expect, rises to the defense of Mr. Neal Peart, but Harold counters that he has some real drumming Nick can listen to.

Cut to one of my favorite scenes from the show ever: Nick having a sonic orgasm (it's good this guy's enjoying so much non-sexual activity, because he's definitely not going to get any from Lindsay) while listening to one of Harold's Gene Krupa albums. "How do they do that?" he asks, riveted. "Maybe they took a lesson?" Harold counters, and Nick suggests maybe it's time he took one. (Ya think? Knowing that Nick never had any training before explains so much.) Lindsay and Sam have been in the kitchen discussing his Cindy kissing problem, and they emerge to find Nick swing-dancing with Jean as Harold does some kind of jazz-hands freestyle. Lindsay is once again dismayed, and Sam says, "I don't think Nick's in love with you. I think he's in love with Mom and Dad."

Lindsay has trouble sleeping, too aware that her stalker ex is sleeping a few yards away on the couch, and Nick stays true to form by rapping on her door in the middle of the night, hoping to get in to, um, get in. Lindsay wisely refuses to open the door, but the camera cuts outside to show Nick wearing a pair of bikini briefs and looking as ridiculous as he has in every other episode combined. (In fairness to the ever-fearless Jason Segel, he's in decent shape, but any non-ripped guy is going to look dopey in those undies.) Nick insists he just wants to thank Lindsay for her parents' kindness, but she begs him to get back to the couch before he wakes Harold. Nick finally acquiesces, but just as Lindsay's head has hit the pillow again, she hears Nick groaning in pain. She goes out to investigate and has the appropriate reaction to his clothes (or lack thereof) while he explains that he stubbed his toe. (Making the wardrobe sight gag complete, Sam emerges from his room in a pair of Star Wars pajamas that Nick compliments.)

Nick is still an unofficial member of the family by the next dinnertime, and he raves about his first-ever drum lesson. Lindsay asks the obvious question of where Nick got the money to pay for it and is flabbergasted to hear that tight-fisted Harold loaned it to him, and is giving Nick a part-time job at A1 to help pay for the lessons. While Nick's helping Jean in the kitchen, Lindsay finally confronts her dad about why he's being so patient and generous with Nick, especially compared to her.

"That's because I expect more from you," he tells her. "Nick's father's a hard man. My father was the same way." Lindsay jokes that she has some idea, and Harold freezes her with the simple way he says, "Lindsay, trust me: you don't." (Boy, Joe Flaherty was good at the dramatic stuff. Someone want to take another stab at explaining why he doesn't work more on either side of the business?)

Later that evening, Mr. Andopolis shows up and declares, without give, that it's time for Nick to come home. Nick immediately caves (he later tries to justify it by saying, "I mean, he came looking for me. I didn't think that was going to happen."), and while he's packing up his meager possessions, Harold tries to reason with Andopolis. He tells a story of how he used to get on his own taskmaster father's nerves by bringing dogs home and says, "Teenagers will try all sorts of things. Sometimes, you've just gotta let 'em be kids." Andopolis looks at Harold like he's the most naive man he's ever met and asks how old Harold's son is; told that Sam is 14, he replies, coldly, "You call me when he turns 16."

(What makes the scene work, I think, is that we have some knowledge that each man doesn't. We know that Nick's a lazy pothead who has justified at least some of his dad's scorn, just as we know that Nick genuinely responded to Harold's slightly gentler approach. At the same time, you could argue that Nick acts the way he does to rebel against his hardass dad, or that he would start slacking off and taking advantage of Harold within another week or two. The point is, it's not completely black and white, even as Harold sees Mr. Andopolis as a mirror image of his own brutal pop and Mr. Andopolis sees Harold as a sap. Because the series ended two episodes later, we never found out whether Nick stuck to the part-time job and drum lessons or just took his father's arrival as another excuse to lie in the basement and get high all day.)

After Nick leaves, Lindsay (who finally felt sympathy for Nick once he was leaving, and once she got a closer look at his dad) thanks Harold for helping out. Harold in turn apologizes for making her feel like he doesn't treat her fairly. She wishes he could talk to her the way he talks to Nick, and he tells her there's an obvious difference: "You're my daughter. Every second you're out of this house, every second that I can't see you or know what you're doing, it's absolute torture for me." She says she can't stay in the house all the time, and after he acknowledges that, he jokes, "Why not?" and they have a nice father-daughter hug.

It's a really sweet storyline all around, as much a Harold spotlight as it is a Nick subplot.

Some other thoughts on "Smooching and Mooching":

• This episode was written by Steve Bannos, better known to you all as Mr. Kowchevski. I always find it interesting that when actors write for the series they act on, they almost never write a lot for themselves (Michael Imperioli's "Sopranos," for instanced, tended to be much heavier on Paulie than Christopher), and there's no Kowchevski at all here.
• Blink and you'll miss Samaire Armstrong (later to play Anna on "The O.C." and now the Paris Hilton clone on "Dirty Sexy Money") borrowing a cafeteria chair from the freaks in the first of her two appearances as one of McKinley High's handful of Deadheads. And, yes, her appearance is entirely to set up the events of the finale.
• Great Moments in DVD Commentary: there's a very long (three-plus minutes) alternate version of the scene where Nick disrupts Quiet Homework Hour at the Weir house. Because he has nothing to say, Judd invites Martin Starr to help fill the time however he sees fit, and Martin begins quizzing Judd about the gory details of childbirth. It's really gross, really funny, and I'd like to think it helped inspire the climactic scene in "Knocked Up." (Also, one of the trio -- I think it's John Daley -- starts joking that no one could possibly be listening to this, so go and prove him wrong, okay?)
• More Great Moments in DVD Commentary: Samm Levine tells a story about how Natasha Melnick, who played Cindy, called him up after she shot her first kissing scene with John Daley to ask whether Daley was supposed to be using his tongue for their stage kisses. Daley (who, to be fair, was just entering puberty back in the day) denies having done this, but Melnick sheepishly confirms her side of the story.
• In the discussion of "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers," I suggested that the writers made Mark the frizzy-haired kid into Nick's new pot connection because Sean (the bass player in Creation) wasn't available to be on the show anymore. Whoops; he's at the makeout party, having himself a fine time mocking Neal's bad luck at Spin the Bottle.
• Speaking of which, I always wonder how old some of the recurring characters are supposed to be. Harris is clearly established as a year or two older than the main geeks (though he seems to only hang out with them). Vicki would seem to be older than Cindy and the other freshmen, by dint of being head cheerleader, but she has classes with them all and clearly knows what's what with Bill. Mark is in the geeks' freshman gym class in the pilot but is written as a contemporary of the freaks (all juniors) in later episodes. I guess the writers figured, correctly, that no one would notice or care about that stuff except the real anal-retentives like yours truly.
• And speaking of anal-retentiveness, great throwaway moment where the geeks debate the positions in the Comedy Pantheon for the likes of "The Jerk," "Caddyshack" and "Stripes." Sam challenges any of them to describe what happens in the second, much weaker half of "Stripes," and Neal rattles off a detailed plot synopsis. Based on what I know of Samm Levine, I'm guessing they didn't even have to script that part.
• More on Samm Levine: Bill and Sam's make-out sessions leave Neal as the only regular character to never get any on the show; in one of the commentaries, Feig admits it was karmic payback for the many, many, many young women Levine hit on (unsuccessfully) while they were in production. (Samm is, thankfully, a good sport about it.)

Up next: "The Little Things," the series' penultimate episode (sigh...) as well as the one that convinced Apatow that Seth Rogen could make him a lot of money.

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

Funny Conchords ready for take-off

Today's column is my ode to "Flight of the Conchords," including stuff from my interview with Bret, Jemaine and producer James Bobin:

People who work in television don't have much time to actually watch television, but they like to keep informed. So whenever I'm out in LA on business, actors, writers and directors will inevitably ask me, "So, what's good this year?," then smile and nod thoughtfully when I namecheck my newest favorites.

When I was in LA last month, though, there was a wrinkle to this phenomenon. I'd finish rattling off the names of a few shows, and then they would say, in a hushed, almost reverent tone, "You know what show I really like? 'Flight of the Conchords.'"

So many Hollywood types professed their love for the HBO series -- a comedy about two New Zealanders in a bottom-of-the-barrel folk band on the fringes of the New York music scene -- that I was barely even fazed when ESPN's Scott Van Pelt began dropping "Conchords" lyrics into "SportsCenter" highlights. (Over a clip of White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen being ejected from a game, Van Pelt quoted, "Be more constructive with your feedback, please," from the Conchords' rap song "Rhymenoceros vs. Hiphopopotamus.")

But if the show biz elite are already pledging their allegiance to the exceedingly polite and silly band, the rest of the country hasn't been so quick. The ratings have been small (the show is averaging only a million viewers per each Sunday airing, down from the 3 million or so watching "Entourage" a half-hour earlier), which is one of only two reasons HBO could have for not automatically renewing the funniest show of the summer and one of the funniest new TV comedies, period, of the last few years.

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

Abrams, Lindelof and... ?

Chicago Magazine has an interesting (albeit lengthy, which I never mind but some do) profile of Jeffrey Lieber, the first writer who was assigned to write the "Lost" pilot script, only to get pushed aside by J.J. and Damon. There are also a few excerpts from Lieber's original script, which even Lieber says only resembles the final version in the descriptions of some of the characters (a con man, a drug addict, a fugitive, etc.)

Hat tip to Mo Ryan for pointing out the story in the first place. Click here to read the full post

Fur is big. Bill Clark is big. Deadwood may be small.

In case you missed it on the comments to the "John From Cincy" finale post, HBO has, not surprisingly, pulled the plug on the adventures of Butchie, Cissy, Freddy, Palaka-y and the rest. Meanwhile, HBO has signed David Milch to a development deal.

But even though Milch is both freed from "John" and signed to stay with HBO, I don't think the "Deadwood" reunion movies are any closer to reality. This story in Variety says that the first project he hopes to work on is another Bill Clark-inspired cop show, this one a period piece based on Bill's experiences coming home from Vietnam and being recruited by the NYPD to go undercover in the anti-war movement of the early '70s. It's an idea Milch has had in his head for a while (I remember him telling me about it shortly after the first season of "Deadwood" ended), and the premise is far enough removed from "NYPD Blue" that it wouldn't feel like a retread. (Plus, Milch's writing style has changed quite a bit since those days.)

As for the "Deadwood" movies, I just think there are too many logistical hurdles for them to ever happen. The cast is huge, and while "John" showed that Milch can get a lot of the supporting players if he wants them, Ian McShane has been working non-stop since "Deadwood" ended, Molly Parker's committed to a new series (CBS' "Swingtown," though who knows how long that'll last), Tim Olyphant seems focused on his suddenly-thriving movie career, etc. Finding a window when all of these people will be available, not to mention reconstructing all the sets that were dismantled and/or sold, just seems impossible to me.

I've said before and will say again that "John" shouldn't take the blame for the demise of "Deadwood," as it was really HBO's alibi for cancelling an acclaimed but prohibitively expensive show. ("You see, we would've loved to keep 'Deadwood' around forever, but David had this idea about surfers, and he was really excited, so...") But once they let all the actors out of their contracts, that effectively killed any future movie prospects. This isn't the kind of thing where Milch can grab three actors and film it in his basement, you know?

Over at Time, James Poniewozik thinks he'd rather see Milch do something new, anyway, and I can see some merit to that. Even though it wasn't intended that way, the season three finale worked surprisingly well as a series ender, I thought. I would never object to more Al Swearengen, but I don't think we're ever going to get it, and I'm okay with that. Click here to read the full post

The Scooter's verse

Two columns today: my tribute to Phil Rizzuto the broadcaster, and a mailbag column about all the smoking on "Mad Men," that Hawaiian version of "Over the Rainbow" you hear everywhere, and the proliferation of bugs.

(Since both stories run more than two pages, I've just linked directly to the printer-friendly version. If this is actually more annoying to some people, let me know in the comments, okay?) Click here to read the full post

What a huckleberry of a day

Phil Rizzuto, Hall of Fame shortstop for the Yankees of the '40s and '50s and a tri-state area sportscasting icon, has died. I'm working on a tribute to the Scooter's TV work for tomorrow's paper, but in the meantime, two links: a YouTube clip of one of his very awkward commercials for The Money Store, and the Amazon page for O Holy Cow, the very funny, very sweet collection of the Scooter's "poetry" (really just things Phil said during Yankee broadcasts, put into verse). 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

Q&A

Sars from Television Without Pity interviewed me for an Ask a TV Critic feature. Click here to read the full post

Freaks and Geeks Rewind: Noshing and Moshing

Spoilers for the "Freaks and Geeks" episode "Noshing and Moshing" coming up just as soon as I crack open a few raw eggs...

The last few episodes featured fairly obvious links between their spotlight characters -- Ken and Neal, Bill and Millie -- and while "Noshing and Moshing" protagonists Neal and Daniel wouldn't seem at first blush to have that much in common, they actually work very well in parallel. Both are the closest thing their social group has to a leader (Neal's more the self-appointed kind and Sam and Bill don't care enough to challenge him, while the freaks genuinely look to Daniel to set the tone). Both initially seem to have it so much better than their friends (Neal moreso than Daniel, but Daniel still had the cool car and the ability to get away with almost anything), and yet bad news on the home front has both of them trying on a laughable new identity in this episode: Neal as a ventriliquist, Daniel as a "punker." (And in the hidden third prong of the episode, Lindsay learns from Neal's brother that reinventing yourself is a lot easier after you get away from high school and go to college.)

Daniel going punk was Franco's idea, and it was a good one. We had hints throughout the series that his home life wasn't something to be envied, but a trio of scenes reveal just how bad it is, and why he might be drawn to the punk scene. In the first, we find out that Daniel's father is an invalid (we don't know his exact condition, as we never see him), and his mother insists that Daniel be late for school so he can pick up his dad's medicine. He notes that he has too many tardy slips already and asks what he's supposed to do while he's in high school; should he drop out and get some dead-end minimum wage job? Mrs. Desario, clearly overextended herself, suggests that might be very helpful, yes. (Daniel is, after all, 18.)

"You're supposed to go inside, take care of him, and I'm supposed to go to school!" he barks at her "It's called Wednesday!"

But family is family, and Daniel goes to get the pills, which leads to him getting a royal ass-chewing from Kim, who had left her notes for an open-note quiz in Daniel's car and failed a test because he was late to school. He doesn't bother to explain -- he's too ashamed of his parents -- and instead starts chewing right back. It's the exact same fight we've seen them have a few dozen times in previous episodes, but for the first time, we understand exactly why Daniel can seem so absent-minded and insensitive: he's carrying far too heavy a load for a high school junior, even one who got left back twice, and important things and people keep getting missed. He and Kim have one of their periodic break-ups, but one that seems (slightly) more permanent than usual. Daniel's attention is drawn to Jenna Zank, a McKinley High drop-out who works in a local liquor store and has gone full-on punk. He's attracted both to the girl and to the angry, nihilistic punk ethos.

In a perfect scene that's Daniel's equivalent to Bill's afternoon snack sequence in "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers," we see Daniel entering his hole of a bedroom, promising his mom that he won't wake up his dad. ("He's always trying to sleep," Daniel mutters to himself.) He takes a newly-bought Black Flag album out of its record sleeve, puts on a giant pair of headphones and sits very quiet and still in the center of the room as he listens to "Rise Above." This is not music meant to be heard under these conditions -- the speakers should be blasting, Daniel should be on his feet, shouting along to the chorus, maybe bouncing off a wall or 12 -- but this is the life he has and the house he lives in, and so he sits there, small and silent as can be, and fantasizes about rising above and out of this crappy situation.

Daniel tries to play punker while asking out Jenna. She can smell the poseur all over him -- "You know what punkers don't do?" she asks. "Call themselves 'punkers.'" -- but Daniel's hot and he's interested. She invites him to hang with her at a club called (of course) The Armpit. (Further getting Daniel's interest: she writes the address on his forearm, which was a bold physical move in 1980 and is now practiced by drunken sorority girls from coast to coast.)

In yet another "Freaks and Geeks" sequence of a character trying on a new persona in front of a mirror (see Bill as the Bionic Woman, Sam as the super-stud, etc.), Daniel decks himself out in the punkiest look he can create, self-consciously putting more cuts into his t-shirt and sticking more safety pins into his leather jacket, then rubbing raw egg into his hair. When he pulls up to grab Ken and Nick (tagging along to The Armpit for the hell of it), they mock the new look, which includes eyeliner and spikey, white hair. (Question for the amateur punkologists/hair stylists: was it the egg alone that caused the color change, or would Daniel have had to use additional household products?)

It's really interesting to see Daniel at the punk club. It's the first time in the series he's completely out of his element, and you can tell how badly he wants to fit in. When he accidentally bumps into some shirtless punk, he looks terrified that he's going to get in trouble, and when the guy lets out a big spray of beer and roars, "YEAHHH!!!!," Daniel joins in with as much relief as enthusiasm. When he runs into Jenna, he tells her this look "is the real me," but doesn't even know the name of the band on stage. ("Puss rules!" "It's Pus. And they're on next.")

He gets kicked in the head by a crowd surfer and takes a cut to the back of the head so bad he needs to go to the bathroom to wash it. Another bathroom-goer tells Daniel about all the poseurs he's spotted, and Daniel gets loud and defensive. (Dude, nobody thought you were a poseur until you said that you weren't.) After cleaning up the cut a bit, he emerges twice as determined to show Jenna and everyone else that he belongs. He spots a woman performing nose piercings with a safety pin and volunteers to go next, but a half-second before the needle goes in, he spots Jenna making out with some other guy, flinches and suffers a nasty cut for his trouble.

Realizing that both Jenna and the punk world aren't the sweet escape he had made them out to be, Daniel decides to bail (Ken, who's discovered the joy of the mosh pit, sticks around) and makes a beeline for Kim's house. In a scene scored beautifully to Dean Martin's "You're Nobody 'Till Somebody Loves You" -- part of a larger montage that begins with the Neal and Lindsay half of the episode -- he raps on her door, Kim comes out, sees the pain in his eyes and takes him back without either of them needing to say a word to each other. (Though, in a funny little grace note, Kim starts fingering the safety pins in confusion as she and Daniel hug.) They fight to the point of violence and then some, but Kim and Daniel love and understand each other as no one else could love or understand either one of them.

The other half of the episode is a sequel to "The Garage Door." (Because it was one of the episodes that didn't air until the next fall on Fox Family, there's a "Previously, on 'Freaks and Geeks'" -- narrated by the guy who played Harris -- montage at the start of the episode, which survives to the DVD.) Neal, still reeling over the discovery of his dad's adultery, starts channeling his energy into a career as a ventriliquist, to the dismay of Sam (who views Neal's dummy Morty as yet another obstacle on his path to coolness) and Bill (who's afraid of Morty).

(Though we may be just as horrified by the dummy as Sam and Bill are, it's actually a very period-appropriate choice for an old-beyond-his-years kid like Neal. "Soap" -- whose main cast included a ventriliquist and his angry dummy -- was still on the air and Willie Tyler and Lester were still popular on the comedy and game show circuits.)

While his mom and dad act like nothing's wrong in their marriage and plan their annual shindig for Dr. Schweiber's patients -- a "smarmy" event Harold Weir has to be dragged kicking and screaming to every year -- Neal begins acting out at school. He lets his grades drop, and when a teacher complains about Neal not doing a science report, Neal talks back and gets sent to the principal's office, and from there to Mr. Rosso. Jeff -- assuming it's one of your run-of-the-mill sex or drug-related high school problems that he has canned answers for -- presses Neal to come clean on what's bothering him. When Neal explains the situation (which isn't that unusual but is beyond the scope of a high school guidance counselor), Rosso is rendered speechless for maybe the only time in the series.

In the middle of all this, Lindsay's been stuck in one of the inner circles of high school hell, having gotten detention for trying to help some girl who was being harassed by Seidelman (the hefty bully played in a few other episodes by Ron Lester from "Popular" and "Varsity Blues"), then gotten that detention extended by insisting on doing homework instead of following the teacher's orders to stare off into space and "think about what you've done."

Both Neal and Lindsay's spirits are buoyed by the arrival of Neal's older brother Barry (David Krumholtz), home from his freshman year of college in Wisconsin. Barry, who was a geek like Neal in high school, has transformed himself into a far more charming, confident guy. He gets to live out every high school kid's fantasy when he tells bossy Kowchevski, "Hey, fat ass, why don't you shove it?," then boasts that Kowchevski has no power over him anymore. (Kowchevski, muttering to himself: "God, I hate it when they come back!")

At a Schweiber family dinner, Vic -- who, remember, was also a geek in high school and fell for Mrs. Schweiber early in college -- asks Barry about his love life and suggests he should play the field, since Schweiber men are irresisitible to the ladies. Neal's filled with rage, and when he and Barry get a minute alone, he tells Barry about the cheating. Barry, not surprisingly, already knew, having spotted Vic at the movies once with a redhead. (Neal got an Atari as his guilt offering; the older Barry got a car.) Neal wants to tell their mom, but Barry cautions him against it -- not to protect their mom's feelings, but because it could lead to a divorce, the selling of the family house, Neal only seeing Vic on weekends, etc. Neal's not happy with keeping silent, but he agrees for now.

The Schweiber party begins, and Harold and Jean (both dressed nicer than we've ever seen them) proceed to get royally hammered so they can tolerate all the dentist jokes. Lindsay, who hadn't planned on going at all until she witnessed Barry's studliness with Kowchevski, shows up in her prettiest party dress and hangs on Barry's every word as he explains how college gives you an opportunity to craft a new identity for yourself. He got beat up all the time in high school, but when he arrived at college, "I said, 'Look at me. I'm the handsome, dashing Jew.'" Lindsay happens to agree with this assessment, and Barry begins to kiss her...

... just as Neal, Lindsay-worshipping Neal, gets fed up with watching Vic act like the perfect husband and walks out of the house and right up to Barry and Lindsay standing by a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. (The writers really pile it onto their characters sometimes, don't they?) Neal, his entire family betraying him at once, moans "Oh, no" and runs back into the house. (We know Lindsay knows about the crush, and she seems suitably mortified, and judging by Barry's guilty reaction, I suspect big brother knew, too.)

Things go from bad to worse back inside, where Vic forces Neal to do his ventriliquist act for the crowd. Surrounded by all of his father's friends and patients, Neal really lashes out, using Morty to tell a series of increasingly vicious anti-Dentite jokes, starting with the difference between a dentist and a proctologist ("One's a doctor of the ass, and one's an ass who's a doctor!") and escalating into suggestions that Vic performs unnecessary surgery to make extra cash, and that he molests his patients when they're asleep from the gas. Vic physically tries to stop him, and Neal storms into his room for the kind of good, long cry that won't help much of anything.

His mom follows and wants to know what's wrong. Neal (and Samm Levine is killing me in this scene, as is Amy Aquino) doesn't want to ruin her life by telling her, but eventually gives in and says Vic's cheating on her. This is not news to Mrs. Schweiber (probably; more on that down below), and she explains, essentially, that they're sticking together for now for Neal's sake, and that they'll confront the adultery more directly after Neal's off to college. (This is not too different from what Barry wanted to happen, by the way.) As Neal sobs in her arms, she again proves herself to be a fantastic mom by telling him, "And you and Morty are very funny."

As I mentioned above in the Daniel section, the episode closes with that Dean Martin montage: Lindsay and Barry say their farewells; Harold and Jean, very drunk and even happier, stagger to the car leaning against their kids (Lindsay's driving; this isn't "Mad Men") and Lindsay beams at the thought of Barry (or, at least, the future he represents); Mrs. Schweiber straightens up the party mess, studies Vic and considers the true nature of her marriage; and Neal puts Morty in a corner of his room and lets out an enormous burst of laughter.

Poor Neal. Like all the non-Weir kids, he has a sub-optimal home life, but he's the only one to realize it this late in the game. I'm still ambivalent, though, on the choice of having him laugh like that in the final scene. This is a horrible night for him all around -- even his mom's compassion has to be tempered by the realization that he's the main reason she's letting herself be humiliated by Vic -- and not in the "Tragedy plus time equals comedy" way of, say, Kim and Lindsay's scramble for the Gremlin in "Kim Kelly Is My Friend" or Daniel getting his nose mutilated here. I don't want to call it a false note, because people respond to awful circumstances in thousands of ways, but it's the only real eyebrow-raising moment in what's otherwise one of the series' most perfect episodes.

Some other thoughts on "Noshing and Moshing":

• When I declared that Bill's Bionic Woman drag moment in front of his mom's mirror back in "Tricks and Treats" to be the single funniest scene in the show's history, a commenter argued for this episode's opening scene, in which Bill performs The Rerun Dance for the very unimpressed Sam and Neal. I still stand by my original declaration, but it's closer than I would have thought. Go watch it on YouTube right now. It will massively brighten up your day. (For comparison purposes, you can see the actual Rerun Dance here. Fred Berry, RIP.)
• In the liquor store scene where we meet Jenna Zank, Ken makes the series' first (and, I think, only) reference to the name of the town where they all live: Chippewa, which Google Maps puts at 2 and a half hours outside of Detroit.
• Like Barry, David Krumholtz spent his wonder years as a geek -- at least on screen -- but this role marked a turning point of sorts in his career as he shifted into adulthood. He still played dweebs some of the time ("Undeclared," "Harold & Kumar"), but he began branching out into parts where he could be crazy (he killed Kellie Marti on "ER") or charming (he was one of the few watchable things about "The Lyon's Den"), and now as the "sexy math genius" on "Numbers," he's living up to Roger Ebert's old theory that a nerd will be a nerd forever, but a geek is often someone who just has to wait a few years until the world catches up with them.
• Also, obviously, the idea of a high school geek trying to become cool in college was the main theme of Apatow's "Undeclared," and Barry mentions quite often that he hasn't picked a major yet.
• I open it to you: Did Barry know about Neal's crush on Lindsay? Did Mrs. Schweiber really know Vic was cheating? I feel confident that the answer to both is yes, but had a debate about the latter with my wife, and we decided in the end that, at the very least, Neal was confirming Mrs. Schweiber's suspicions. (No way was this news completely out of the blue.)

Up next: Sigh... we're up to the final disc of the set (unless you're one of the lucky SOB's with the yearbook edition). Only three episodes to go in this summer experiment, starting with "Smooching and Mooching," in which the writers can recognize cancellation approaching and decide to give Sam (and Bill) some sugar while they still can. Oh, and Jason Segel in bikini briefs. Good times...

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

World tour

Spoilers for, in order, "Doctor Who," "Flight of the Conchords" and, for habit's sake, "Entourage" coming up just as soon as I use soundwaves to reset my DNA...

Sorry for the brief lag in "Doctor Who" postings. The conclusion of the Dalek two-parter was just so underwhelming that, even when I eventually finished it (over several sittings), I didn't have the enthusiasm to write about it. "The Lazarus Experiment" wasn't a masterpiece, either -- outside of the arc stuff with Martha and the mysterious Mr. Saxon, it felt very much like a "Who" spec script, science gone awry creates a monster for the Doctor to stop -- but it worked well as a MacGuffin on which to hang the question of Marth's role in the Doctor's life. (Also, was I the only one who thought all the references to the London Blitz were going to be building up towards some link between Lazarus's experiment and the events of "The Doctor Dances"?) I'm glad Martha forced the issue of being a passenger versus a companion, and the Doctor's clearly developing a real respect for her. (Did he ever let Rose use the sonic screwdriver on her own?)

I can't say much more about the arc elements. Though I've tried to remain unspoiled for all the remaining episodes (save the self-contained "Blink"), forces beyond my control have given me a pretty good idea who this Saxon fellow is. So for the benefit of people who are completely unspoiled about the rest of the season, let's try to contain discussion to this episode.

Not the funniest "Flight of the Conchords" of the season (though, in fairness, fatigue was kicking my ass again; I really ought to just wait to watch this show early Monday nights), but the focus on Murray was welcome, as was the notion of devoting an entire episode to nothing but the band and its struggles. (With a little side dish of Murray's marital strife, I suppose.) The leather suits were a good running gag, though I can't decide which is funnier: that Murray way overcalculated their per diem (per weekem?), or that the shopping in and around the LaGuardia Hotel was so cheap that they could afford three leather suits with their meal money. There are about seven different things that are funny about the concept of the NJU women's water polo team, and I liked how all of Bret's standard behavior suddenly became very expensive, rock 'n roll-seeming behavior once the trio hit the road.

I suppose I should give "Entourage" the same respect (or lack thereof) I do "Rescue Me" and just leave it alone until the end of the season, but I keep watching the damn thing out of laziness, and I can't even blame it on having dipped into Vince's secret stash. Once again, we have one of the boys (this time Turtle) seemingly getting into trouble and then escaping consequence-free, and once again we have Ari operating completely independently of the guys. I like Mrs. Ari to a point, but how does Doug Ellin not recognize that Ari (and the show) is so much funnier when he's running around trying to extinguish the many different fires that Vince is setting to his career? Also, did anyone not see the punchline to the Anna Farris story coming from miles away?

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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.

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John From Cincy: The rules of the game

Spoilers for the "John From Cincinnati" season (series?) finale coming up just as soon as I grab my jump-balls...

I can sum up my chronological reaction to the finale roughly as follows: Wow. Huh? Whoa. Wha? Um, okay...

On the one hand, we get the majesty of John and Shaun surfing their way down from "Cincinnati," perfectly edited and then scored to Bob Dylan's "Series of Dreams" (which at one time was being considered for the show's theme song). It's a sequence at once so beautiful and so fist-pumping that I've already watched it at least as many times as I revisited The Sermon At The Motel.

And we got a character -- Linc, of all people -- finally start to make some headway in deciphering John's echolalia-riddled speech patterns. (So that's what "If my words are yours, can you hear my father?" means! Thank you!) And we even kinda sorta explained (I think) the point of Mitch's levitation: he's been floating away from his family for years, and it's not until he recognizes this, swallos his pride and asks for Butch and Shaun's help in getting down that he can truly put his feet on terra firma and engage with the world and his loved ones again.

On the other hand, we come to the end of the season -- and, I suspect, the series, for reasons I can elaborate on one last time below -- with no greater understanding of John's (and Milch's) master plan. The episode just keeps piling on the subplots and characters in a way that seems less in service to the story (whatever it is) than to Milch's desire to, say, squeeze in Jerri and Dwayne, or to give cameos to old buddies like Keone Young (aka Mr. Wu, as one of our Hawaiian visitors), Peter Jason (aka Con Stapleton, as the car salesman who, it's implied, may be John's "father") and Bill Clark (aka the real mind behind "NYPD Blue," who pops up as the Imperial Beach chief of police with the sickly dog). And even Linc only can get so far with John.

I don't think Milch is blind to how the audience is reacting to all this, nor to the notion that this would probably be his last opportunity to tell us much of anything about these characters. He has Linc berate John into giving him a straight answer about what he's supposed to do (which John turns into another chance to play parrot), and has Mitch bark out a line like, "I need to know what this is about!" And then there's John's list of way the bleep out of left field pronouncements about what will happen to many characters in the future, which I will reproduce here rather than attempt to explain, because the Dr. Smith thing in particular just hurts my brain:

"Dr. Smith comes back 20 years younger from Cincinnati. Cissy gets knocked up. She's bigger than Leona Helmsley. Earth puts Dickstein on retainer; Daphne keeps his head straight. Jerri meets a slew of new harelips. My father forewalls (four walls?)Barry's bar. Dr. Smith trains Dwayne and Ramon. My father freelances in Cass' camera."

As I said in my column the other day, it's like John is reading from Milch's outline for the theoretical second season, but it doesn't do much, if anything, in helping us decipher what happened in the here and now. (For all I know, Garret Dillahunt was just busy getting root canal work the week this was filmed and Milch made up the "20 years younger" thing as some bizarre explanation for Dr. Smith's absence from the rest of the episode.)

A commenter to Friday's post complained about my desire for explanation, saying "Irreducibility, & non-conformity to existing concepts and frameworks are kinda the essence of the miraculous." And, look, I understand the whole notion of God working in mysterious ways, as well as the one about proof denying faith, etc., etc. But I'm not one of the Yosts, or Vietnam Joe, or Barry Cunningham, someone who's experiencing John's miracles directly; I'm the viewer of a television show. I don't need John to tell Linc "I'm an extraterrestrial from the planet of Grapthar's Hammer, and I'm here to inspire your entire planet to take up surfing because we really dig watching it," but I need something to keep me engaged during the stretches in between the grand moments like The Sermon, or John and Shaun's return, or Bill's belated trip up the stairs, and a few hints about the grand plan might help.

In fairness, even if we don't know the purpose or mechanism behind John's miracles, at least we've seen tangible results over these ten episodes. The Yost family, once a damaged, splintered group with little more than a name in common, have been healed. Butchie's clean and sober, Cissy has forgiven herself for molesting him, Tina's back in town and not completely unwelcome (loved the moment during the parade where the entire Yost clan joined in unison to insult the jerkoff who was hassling Tina) and Mitch has gotten down from the air and back in the game. Linc has a conscience, Cass a purpose and, in one of the best, most touching "character unburdens his soul to an inanimate object" Milch monologues ever, Bill got the courage to go up that damn spiral staircase and make peace with his wife's death.

(Maybe it's just my difficulty in translating all Milchspeak, but I hadn't realized until he got up there and we saw the hospital bed that Lois was ill even before she fell down the steps; why would you put an invalid up there?)

To recycle another line from Friday's column, what an enthralling, frustrating, amazing show. I can't explain it, but I'm going to miss it.

Some other thoughts on the finale:

• So here's why I think the show's not coming back: it's about as expensive as "Deadwood" (minus the period sets and costumes but plus even more reshoots and overruns), but with at best a quarter of the buzz and critical acclaim. (Even I, Blurby McBlurberson, have been guarded in my praise throughout, and most mainstream critics just gave up after the first three or four episodes.) "John" was created in the first place as HBO's alibi for cancelling "Deadwood," but that's not relevant anymore. (If anything, cancelling "John" increases the chances -- however slightly -- that those "Deadwood" movies might get made some day, in that Milch won't have anything else on his plate. I still will only believe the movies are getting made when the review screeners cross my desk, though.)
• Best payoff to a set-up that didn't seem like a set-up: Shaun returns to Mitch and Cissy's house and asks Cissy to make him a "peanut butter and butter" sandwich. Cissy, stunned, asks, "Not tuna?" Maybe you should've asked him how he liked it at some point, huh, Cissy?
• So, is Con the car salesman John's father, some other celestial being, or just an eccentric guy who happens to throw around John buzzwords like "Zeroes and ones"?
• Anyone care to offer an interpretation of the final shot and line? I've replayed it a half-dozen times, and best I can make out it's, "Mother of God, Cass/Kai." Huh? (I kept going back to make sure it wasn't "bless Kai," which it's clearly not.) On the plus side, Keala Kennelly's got some moves on the board.
• Speaking of Kai, nice little moment where she thanks Ramon for taking care of Butchie during his long time in the heroin wilderness.
• Liked Bill's running commentary on all the participants in the parade ("Here's a drug casualty, he thinks his car's normal... Here's the homosexual in the hybrid... look at the breasts on these women. This country is doomed.")
• Couldn't care less about Mr. Wu and our other visitor from Hawaii. Freddy and Palaka have discussed their impending arrival enough that it's not a completely out of left field development, but it still felt completely extraneous.
  

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It's not porn. It's HBO.

This morning's column goes a little more in depth in looking at the fun, sexy time (or not) that is HBO's upcoming "Tell Me You Love Me":

"For the actors, did anybody actually, uh, do it?"

The question hangs in the air of the ballroom -- site of a July press conference to discuss HBO's "Tell Me You Love Me," easily the most sexually explicit drama in American TV history -- like a clumsy pick-up line. Yet contained within its Beavis & Butt-head phrasing are many of the emotions associated with sex: anticipation, discomfort, anger, relief, even disappointment.

The reporters cringe at the wording, but they've all been buzzing for weeks about the show's sex scenes -- many of them shot in a way that makes it hard to imagine how the actors didn't, uh, do it -- and they crane their necks forward for an answer. The "Tell Me" producers and actors shift uncomfortably in their seats, irritated and eager to deny the crowd the satisfaction it seeks.

"Next question," snaps creator Cynthia Mort.

"I know I didn't," quips actress Ally Walker.

The reporter presses on, "I'm assuming it was fake, but how did you go about making it look so authentic, and why did you have to do that?"

Finally, "Tell Me" co-star Michelle Borth -- participant in a number of the series' rawest moments -- loses her patience.

"We are not porn stars," she says, testy. "We're actors. And I think part of our job in any scene, whether it's a sex scene or, you know, a fight scene or, you know, an emotional scene, you do the best that you can to do it authentically and honest. So, you know, we were doing the sex scenes. We were doing them to make you ask that question, basically."

That question has enveloped discussion of "Tell Me You Love Me" (which debuts Sept. 9 at 9 p.m.) to the point where it's hard to consider the non-sexual aspects. Even when the characters are fully clothed and not touching, this is a painfully intimate look at the problems that can plague a relationship, but the word "intimate" connotes sex. It may not even matter that most of the sex scenes, usually born less of lust than desperation and fear, almost work as an advertisement for celibacy.

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