The Wire: All in the game, back in the day

As one of my favorite shows after another has run out of episodes because of the strike, a simple mantra has kept me sane: "'The Wire' is coming. 'The Wire' is coming. 'The Wire' is coming."

If you've read me long enough, you know I think "The Wire" is the greatest drama in TV history, and I've been waiting for some season five episodes like a kid waiting for Santa (or Hanukah Harry, if you prefer). Yesterday, the first seven of the final season's episodes arrived, and it took most of my willpower to refrain from telling my boss I was going home to spend the rest of the day watching them. (If nothing else, I need to parcel them out a little or I'll have almost nothing left to enjoy on TV in a few weeks.)

So far, I've watched two, and while I won't spoil anything major, I can say that David Simon and company are still bringing it. As a veteran Baltimore Sun city editor (sort of a journalistic Bunny Colvin), Clark Johnson (Meldrick Lewis from "Homicide") fits into the cast like he's been on the show the whole time, and there were a number of moments where I began cursing the behavior of the characters as if they were real people. (Carcetti, not surprisingly, inspired the most profanity.) There's a scene with Herc near the end of the first episode that had me loudly whooping with laughter for a good 60 seconds, though you need a bit of "Wire" institutional memory to really appreciate the joke.

Since I don't want to seem like too much of a tease, I'm going to point you towards some new "Wire" content to tide you over until January 6: three short films telling "Wire" origin stories, as we meet both Prop Joe and Omar as children and see the first night of the McNulty/Bunk partnership. Amazon is hosting all three on their page for the season four DVD set, and I'm working with HBO to see if I can link to them directly without taking you to Amazon. All are very true to the characters, and all are very funny.

Also, HBO's going to be airing two documentaries looking back on the series and previewing the final season, at 10:30 p.m. on Dec. 20 and 21. The first is "The Wire Odyssey," about the series as a whole; the second is "The Wire: The Last Word," which looks at the media theme of season five. I was interviewed for both of them, though I have no idea how much I'll figure in, if at all. (As I recall, my answers weren't as sound byte-y as I suspect they wanted.) Click here to read the full post

Shows going to The Show

So Les Moonves gave a speech the other day in which he said that CBS might incorporate cleaned-up versions of "Dexter," "Brotherhood" and other Showtime series into their schedule if the strike keeps on going, NBC is already grabbing "Criminal Intent" back from USA for the duration, and, as Mo Ryan notes on her blog, there's a possibility that NBC could start calling up more shows from its various cable partners.

I actually think "Dexter" might not be a hard fit on a broadcast network. Obviously, they'll have to cut 10-15 minutes of content, but if that means less of the supporting cast and their lame season one subplots, I'm fine with it. Deb and Masuka are the only characters who swear a lot, and most of the really graphic violence is implied. We hear the whir of Dexter's drill and then cut away without seeing the real gore.

So here's my question: if you hadn't seen them in their original forms, would you want to watch bowdlerized versions of edgy cable series during the strike, or if you cared enough about "Dexter" to see it without subscribing to Showtime, would you just wait for the DVDs? There's going to be some kind of audience for this stuff -- ABC did decent numbers during that brief period when they would rerun "Monk" episodes a few weeks after they aired on USA -- but how much? In this age where the distinctions between broadcast and cable are rapidly disappearing, how much larger would the audience for "Battlestar Galactica" be on NBC? Click here to read the full post

Sepinwall on TV: Disaster days at 'ER'

Today's column celebrates the 300th episode of "ER" (yes, it's still on, and it's actually not bad these days) with a partial list of the various disasters to befall County General and its staff over the years. Click here to read the full post

Life: He's not attached to any of these cars

Spoilers for the pre-strike finale of "Life" coming up just as soon as I give away my Accord...

Yes, this is three "Life" posts in three days, but I can't help it if NBC schedules two episodes over that span, or if Damian Lewis was so insanely good in this episode that I felt compelled to put some of my thoughts on the show into column form.

I don't know that a lot of the plot logic of "Fill It Up" holds under close inspection -- If Jack Reese's goons are cleaning up loose ends, why leave the girl alive? On what planet is any of Hollis' confession admissable in court? On what planet does Crews not lose both his job (for enough infractions to give TPTB license to boot an embarrassment) and his settlement money (for violating Hollis' civil rights in every way imaginable)? Why would Jack Reese want Hollis in charge of the Seybolts' daughter, except as a stunning plot twist for the last act? -- but damn if Lewis didn't hold this fragile enterprise together for an hour through sheer force of will.

In the moment, watching each scene, I believed Charlie Crews to be capable of anything, both emotionally (I would not have been the least bit shocked had he killed Hollis) and physically (I was not the least bit surprised that he was able to kill two men while trapped upside down in the second of his three cars in this episode). Lewis makes me believe in both the hard and soft parts of Crews' fragile psyche, the guy who can prepare himself for a suicide mission to find Hollis and the man who could lend the girl enough willpower to make it until the paramedics showed up.

There's a danger in this kind of show, as with "House," of the star being so much more magnetic than everyone else in the cast that scenes without him become dull, but I didn't mind Charlie's partners, past and present, on their snake hunt through the marijuana jungle. Part of that was the series' continued gift for oddball imagery, and part of that was the fact that they were talking about Crews the entire time, in the same way that any "House" scene without Hugh Laurie always involves the other doctors complaining about House.

(I do wonder, though, about what purpose Stark serves whenever the show comes back. In the early going, he was a red herring for the murder conspiracy story, but this episode pretty much cleared him of that; whatever shady attitude he displayed in the early episodes can be pinned to his discomfort and shame at having to see the partner he sold out. Aside from being the token uniform at every artistically-framed crime scene that Crews and Reese investigate, why does the show still need Stark?)

What did everybody else think? Was the resolution to the murder mystery (if not the larger conspiracy) satisfying? Are the ongoing freedom of Reese Sr. and the whereabouts of the girl enough to keep you interested in the arc stuff? Do you think the show even still needs an ongoing mystery arc? Click here to read the full post

All TV: It's a wonderful 'Life'

Two "Life" posts in two days (and, depending on when I get to blogging tonight's show, there'll be either three in two or three in three), as I used today's column to sing the series' praises a bit while I had the chance. (This was the last one shot before the strike shut down production.) No thoughts I haven't expressed here before, but I'm linking for the sake of completeness. Click here to read the full post

Festivus isn't over until you pin your father!

Thanks for all the suggestions for the Best Of list, which will run near the end of the month. Now it's time for the flipside of that. I've never done a traditional Worst Of list, in part because I steer clear of stuff that would probably deserve it. (I don't think I've seen a full episode of "The Hills" since the pilot, for instance.)

Instead, continuing a tradition I started with Matt Seitz back when we shared the beat, I do a Festivus list, rattling off the people and shows that have disappointed me in the last year, as part of that year's Airing of the Grievances. The people and shows on the list have to be capable of disappointing me, so the truly terrible wouldn't qualify. I had no expectations for "Cavemen," for instance, so it doesn't qualify, while season two of "Friday Night Lights" or, last year, Aaron Sorkin and "Studio 60" would.

Again, I have a lot of stuff in mind for the list already, but never want to miss someone or something deserving of a trip to the aluminum pole. Fire away with the suggestions. Click here to read the full post

Life open thread

I'm jammed at work today with a couple of column assignments, one of which is reviewing tomorrow night's episode of "Life," which doesn't give me much time to write about last night's Zen-tastic episode. So for those who want to talk about horses, wild parties, martial arts and novelty t-shirts, talk amongst yourselves, and I'll try to kibbitz in the comments if/when I have time. Click here to read the full post

Chuck: Who can retell the things that befell us, who can count them?

Spoilers for "Chuck" coming up just as soon as I try some of Jeff's eggnog...

"Chuck Bartowski will return after the New Year... at least, we hope so."

Well, thanks to the back nine (or whatever) pick-up, not to mention the two episodes in the can that are being saved for whenever production resumes, we know "Chuck" will be back -- at some point -- and this wasn't a bad one to go out on for however many weeks or months it's going to take for the strike to end.

The meat of "Chuck Versus the Crown Vic" was ostensibly the status of Chuck and Sarah's relationship post-Bryce and post-kiss, but for me the real heart of the episode was Casey. Casey always gets stuck as the third wheel, posing as the limo driver or the roulette dealer or the cater waiter while Chuck and Sarah get glammed up, but he's kind of carrying the team, staying level-headed and (other than his boxers-and-handcuffs incident) not letting himself get sucked into the romantic shenanigans that so often distract his partners. As he said to Sarah, they made a choice when they became spies, and he has no problems living with the ramifications of that choice -- but damn if he didn't look conflicted when reminded that Chuck would be taken care of once the new Intersect gets up and running. The guy's human, after all, and not just for inanimate objects like his bansai tree, his guns or his beloved, now-totaled Crown Vic. Adam Baldwin always brings the one-liner-y goodness on this show, but last night he had a number of really nice dramatic moments, like his speech to Sarah or the aforementioned reaction to the Intersect news. But my favorite may have been a combination of the funny and the serious, as Casey tried to deal with the Crown Vic's destruction, and you could see him going through all five stages of grief simultaneously. He wanted to kill Chuck, but he also understood why it happened.

(That said, couldn't the three of them have just jumped off the boat? Or were there too many unconscious bad guys lying around who would have blown up real good?)

After Casey, my favorite part of the episode was Lester hustling the staff at dreidel to the tune of "Pimp Juice." (One of two superb hip-hop selections on the soundtrack, the other being Run-DMC's "Christmas in Hollis" at the party.) I had almost forgotten that Lester was taking bar mitzvah lessons for whatever reason, and the idea of him trying to exploit his apparent conversion to Judaism to get over on his co-workers -- whether with the dreidel, forcing Big Mike to refer to the Christmas party as a holiday party, calling Jeff "bubeleh" (Hebrew -- or maybe Yiddish, I forget -- for "sweetheart") was damned amusing to me on the night before the Festival of Lights begins. Even though Schwartz refuses to make Chuck Jewish, it's nice to have some kind of Semitic culture from the man who gave us Chrismukkah.

The episode had a few weak spots -- after being really engaged in the Chuck/Sarah thing for the last three episodes, their bickering here didn't click for me, and Morgan with Anna's parents was definitely on the low end of the Morgan curve -- but what other show is going to give me gratuitous "Passenger 57" references in the middle of a Bond parody scene?

Bye, "Chuck." Of the new shows being scuttled by the strike, I'll miss you most of all. Come back soon, okay?

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

Heroes: A fate worse than death?

Spoilers for the "Heroes" "volume finale" (or season finale, or pre-strike finale, or whatever you want to call it) coming up just as soon as I figure out why one of my heating vents has a flashing red light behind it...

To quote the great George Costanza, that's it for me!

Probably.

My willpower is about as weak as Elle's ambush strategy (hint: calling out your target's name before you throw the first lightning zap is a very bad idea), so I have a feeling I'll wind up tuning into "Heroes" volume 3, whenever it debuts, but I won't be happy with myself for doing it.

You tune into a show like "Heroes" -- a heavily-serialized, heavily-mythologized, heavily-pretentious drama -- for the payoffs, and we're now 0-for-2 on that score. Season one built up to Peter hitting Sylar with a parking meter while everyone else stood around and watched. The close to "Generations" wasn't quite as lame -- more characters got more things to do, and at least one story thread (Hiro vs. Kensei) came to something of an interesting conclusion -- but it still wasn't remotely exciting enough to justify the time I put into this mess of a half-season.

There have been interesting ideas in these 11 episodes, but the plotting and pacing has been so haphazard that none of them came close to realizing their potential. Why devote all that time to Monica's mimicking powers and then structure the climax to her storyline in such a way that prevents her from using them? Why waste all that time on Peter and the lassie from Cork and not even address what happened to her after Peter nuked the virus? Why keep Niki and Nathan on the sidelines for virtually the entire arc and then make their deaths the big stunners? (It's almost as if Kring couldn't bring himself to kill off two major characters until he had made them as irrelevant as Simone or Alejandro.)

Nathan was one of the few characters who rarely seemed paper thin (and I think that's as much a credit to Adrian Pasdar as it is to anything in the scripts), and so I guess I'll miss him (but no moreso than when he would be absent for long stretches this year). But the character's death -- I'm guessing at the hands of HRG, though the silhouette of the assassin could have been anybody -- is going to make it easier for me to cut the cord with "Heroes" (assuming I have the intestinal fortitude to do so). When Pasdar, or Jack Coleman, or Kristen Bell, or Masi Oka or a few of the guest stars is on screen, I can fool myself into thinking that "Heroes" is something deeper and better-constructed than it actually is. The fewer actors there are like that, the harder that illusion is to create.

I'd like to give Kring and company a mulligan, based on the difficulty of getting these episodes done before the strike. For all I know, there may have been a much more elaborate plan for "Generations" and its denouement that got ruined in the rush to provide any kind of closure at all. But there was no such rush involved with season one, and I'm inclined to think that no matter how much planning time was involved, "Generations" would have come to an underwhelming end.

Some specific thoughts on "Powerless":

-Given that Nathan can fly but isn't super-strong, and that Parkman ain't the lightest bowling ball in the alley, I was wondering how they would deal with them having to fly together to Odessa; the "let's never speak of this again" approach was genuinely funny. (Also funny, for tradition's sake: "Flying man!")

-I was really hoping that Monroe was going to try to break open the vial, only to discover that Hiro had, in the middle of their conversation, stopped time and taken it out of his hand. Ah, well; would've robbed us of a non-suspenseful act-out with the finally non-gullible Peter running for the vault.

-Speaking of things I was hoping for but didn't get: that Sylar would regain his ability to steal other people's powers but not the powers he had already stolen. Seemed a more interesting journey to take the character on -- plus deals with the usual problem of him being too much for anybody but Peter to handle (preferably with parking meter in hand).

-One reason to be very glad that "Generations" is over: we'll never again have to hear Ma Petrelli or anyone else utter that nebulous "We thought we were going to save the world" line again. And I still have no clearer an idea of what The Company is all about than I did at the start of the arc.

-Anyone actually going to miss Niki? Other than guys who think Ali Larter's hot?

-What purpose does Maya serve going forward? Or is she there to compensate for the loss of Larter with the horndog demographic?

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

Son of strike scheduling

Still getting my sea legs after a weekend trip to Chicago in which I was very good to my palate and very bad to my arteries, hence the relative quiet on the blog today.

Where the resumption of talks between the writers and the studios was supposed to be a positive sign, the sides seem almost father apart than ever, and now other networks are starting to follow Fox's lead by announcing strike schedules for early '08.

NBC already has "American Gladiators" slated to take over for "Chuck," among other mid-season reality replacements, and today they announced that "Law & Order" the mothership will return to its old night and time on Wednesday, January 2 -- and will be paired the following week with episodes of "Criminal Intent." They're episodes of "Criminal Intent" that have already aired on USA, but what's that old NBC promo department saying? If you haven't seen it on our network, it might be new to you?

Meanwhile, CBS announced a fairly elaborate post-New Year's makeover that includes the return of "Old Christine" (Mondays at 9:30) and "Jericho" (Tuesdays at 10), the debut of "The Captain," a sitcom with Chris Klein and Jeffrey Tambor (I'm as confused as you are about that pairing), "Comanche Moon" (the final "Lonesome Dove" miniseries) being relocated from its New Year's week graveyard to mid-January, and in a move as depressing as it is unsurprising, the first-ever winter edition of "Big Brother" on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays.

Now how much does it cost to expand my Netflix subscription so I always have a new DVD available? Click here to read the full post

Dexter: Man goes in the cage, cage goes in the plastic sheeting...

Spoilers for "Dexter" coming up just as soon as I sign up for a SCUBA class...

I'm going to be briefer than I would otherwise like. I got to see this episode on a getaway Friday as I was packing for a weekend trip, and I wanted to finish writing something before the vacation began, so you're going to have to carry the conversation on this one for a week. I've got faith.

After being concerned about a lot of the contrivances in last week's episode, there weren't many moments here that had me asking, "Why would he do that?" Just when I was starting to worry that Lundy was acting willfully ignorant in his conversation with Laguerta about the stakeout logs, for instance, he went and acknowledged that she was probably right, but that her being right was of no use to him with tainted evidence.

Harry's return to prominence continued with the revelation of how/why he really died. (Though am I losing my memory, or did season one feature a flashback or two of Harry near the end of his life looking far more sickly -- maybe even bedridden -- than he appeared when he found Dexter cutting up that body?) I was never clear on when exactly Dexter's active serial killing career began relative to when Harry died, and Dexter's recognition that Harry supported The Code on paper but not in reality was a very important insight into both men.

(Dexter realizing that he inadvertently stole Deb's childhood by forcing Harry to spend so much time channeling Dexter's violent energy was another interesting one, and one that played into Deb's abandonment issues with Lundy.)

I enjoyed the cat and mouse game in the cabin between Dexter and Doakes, and how being exposed to the true face of Dexter -- even hidden behind opaque plastic sheeting -- shattered Doakes. If a hard man with blood on his hands like Doakes would react that way, how badly would Deb and Rita and the kids be hurt by discovering Dexter's true face? And how good a job do the writers do of making me want to root for the serial killer to get away with it, even if it means sacrificing an honest cop in the process?

If there was one part of the episode that frustrated me, it was the continued presence of Lila, who appears to be framing Angel as part of some convoluted plot to get revenge on Dexter and/or win him back. As Dexter's new emotional guru, a woman with some dark impulses but a relatively pure motivation, Lila was interesting. As a nutbar manipulator who resorts to arson, assault and now drug-aided mindgames to get her way, I'm tired of her. I hate this kind of character whenever it pops up on a show I like, and post-breakup Lila has been no exception to that.

That's it for me. Talk amongst yourselves. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

FNL: All apologies

Vacation weekend looms, so brief spoilers for the "Seeing Other People episode of "Friday Night Lights" coming up just as soon as I do some laundry...

In the interest of discussing as much of the episode -- which had its ups and its downs but largely seemed like a transitional show setting up next week's (hopeful) conclusion to the rapist storyline -- as possible in as little space/time as I have available, let's go straight to the bullet points:

• Riggins' time rooming with the meth-cooking underwear model was handled in just about the right way, I thought. Clearly, there was something wrong with the guy well before he made the suspicious cold medicine request, but Tim actually seemed to be enjoying his time there (a little) for a day or so. I liked him doing individual apologies to all the players on the team (calling red-headed Bradley "Firecrotch" was a nice touch), and wish that the scene had carried on as if he was going to do one for every player, even as Coach was putting the guys through their calisthenics and barking at Riggins about all his future probationary work.
  
• Beyond Riggins' return to the team, the football stuff seemed odd. Even in a strange season where the new coach was forced out after a handful of games, shouldn't the natives be a lot more restless when the team has two losses (or is it three?) already, and one a humiliating, Knicks vs. Celtics-style blow-out? Shouldn't Coach be in bunker mode trying to fix the defense, with him as the one letting the marriage slip away again? Instead, the only comment anyone made about the loss was Glenn; even Saracen didn't stay mad at Smash for very long after Smash seemed to not care about losing.
• I thought the handling of the Julie/Noah story was much more interesting this week, particularly if it turns out that Tami was overreacting to that just as much as Eric was to her and Glenn. I continue to find Julie an intolerable brat this year, but she's a realistic brat, and in the scene where she confronted her mom about Noah, Aimee Teegarden reached down deep to a place I'm not sure even she knew existed. That wasn't just her cranking up the volume; that was pure, unadulterated, unforced rage.
• On the other hand, Matt and Carlotta continues to bore me, and it was strange how the Smash storyline ended halfway through the episode and largely turned into an excuse for Smash to play love doctor for Matt. I don't mind a lighter story now and then, but after playing Smash's college choice much more seriously in the last episode (and even in the Mama Smash scene here), the stakes suddenly seemed much lower tonight. On the other hand, Zach Gilford's delivery of "Was it Cabo in your pants?" made the entire thing worth it.
  
• If it hadn't been for Lyla hitching a ride in the Landry Love Wagon back in "State," I guess this would have been the first Lyla/Landry scene ever. I'm waiting to see how this ends up (if, in fact, it ends up) next week, but the one thing I can never complain about with this story arc is Jesse Plemmons' performance. The kid brings it every week, whether the material deserves it or not.
  
• Just because it merits saying every week: Connie Britton is amazing. Highlights this time included her response to Eric accusing her of not spending time on the family, her tearing into Noah, the look of guilt and shame on her face as the argument with Shelley got away from her, and her joy at hearing Eric say he liked her.
  

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

What do we love? Pain!

Topic for the weekend (and into next week if you want): what were the best shows (or even episodes of shows) you watched on TV in the calendar year 2007? Any genre, any daypart, doesn't matter; if it was on TV in '07 (and not a rerun like a "Seinfeld" episode or something), it qualifies. I know we have another month to go, but I need to start gathering my thoughts for the Best-of list, and while I have a lot of things in mind (probably too many already), I'm always paranoid about missing something obvious. Click here to read the full post

Scrubs & Earl: Arrested development

I'm going away for the weekend, which means tonight's "Friday Night Lights" review may be brief, as will Sunday night's "Dexter" review (assuming I'll even have computer access on Sunday night to post it).

In the meantime, some very quick thoughts on last night's "Scrubs" and "My Name Is Earl" coming up just as soon as I doctor my birth certificate...

I really want to be enjoying this final "Scrubs" season more than I am (and the longer the strike lasts, the greater the likelihood that the show won't have a proper finale, short of Bill Lawrence doing a YouTube diary entry where he talks about what would have happened with J.D. and Elliot and what The Janitor's name was), but it continues to feel both flat and repetitive. Having the characters acknowledge that they went through the exact same problem two or three episodes back doesn't excuse the fact that they're doing it again. I appreciate the look at how hard it is to leave behind your (relatively) carefree twenties and deal with the responsibilities of your 30s (having gone through much the same not long ago), but I feel like they're beating me over the head with it, and making J.D. seem even denser than usual in the bargain.

Also beating over the head? The none-too-subtle hints that Kelso was hiding his age to avoid mandatory retirement. It's the kind of story you can actually tell in a final season (not that we'll necessarily get to see the episodes where Kelso steps down), but as with J.D.'s cluelessness about when he could and couldn't be immature, Elliot not getting this, even after she learned he was 65, frustrated me.

Also running in place, though not necessarily in a bad way, was "My Name Is Earl." Earl was talking so much about his freedom that I suspected something would trip him up, and I'm okay with that, because it feels like the better episodes of this uneven season have dealt with Earl as a convict. (This one, maybe not as much as the inter-gang love story, but I'll never complain about an opportunity to see Jason Lee breakdance.) Plus, paroling Earl would have lost us Craig T. Nelson's warden, one of the more amusing characters they've added.

I still expect them to find a way to get Earl out of prison within a few episodes, but now there's a new issue to deal with: Earl's broke. He had to run out of Lotto money eventually -- $100,000 isn't that much money, especially after taxes, and even living in that fleabag motel, it's been more than two years -- and I'm curious to see how Earl sets about being a freelance do-gooder without any money to support himself. Even if he gets back that job at the appliance store with the cast of "Rudy," is that enough to both support himself and the various expenses that come along with The List?

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

All TV: 'Tin Man' takes all the fun out of Oz

Today's column previews Sci Fi's underwhelming "Wizard of Oz" updating, "Tin Man":

Imagination is hard. Imagination requires the creation of new ideas. Re-imagination, on the other hand? That just requires taking a pre-existing idea and changing it ever-so-slightly. Since new ideas in Hollywood are hard to come by, we get lots of re-imagining these days, from simple TV-to-movies translation like "Transformers" to more radical changes like the new political allegory incarnation of "Battlestar Galactica."

The problem with re-imagination comes when the material's so popular that any changes - or, for that matter, the reason for telling the story again - have to seem justified.

In the case of "Tin Man," a six-hour miniseries debuting Sunday night at 9 on Sci Fi, the source material is one of the most beloved stories ever: L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz." The press notes insist that "Viewers familiar with Baum's storyline will delight in the dozens of clever ways in which this new interpretation echoes the old," but for the most part, the changes all seem puzzling and arbitrary.

There's also a review of HBO's Don Rickles documentary, "Mr. Warmth," which I liked a lot more. To read the full thing, click here. Click here to read the full post

30 Rock: Do they have fist names in Knuckle Beach?

Brief spoilers for "30 Rock" coming up just as soon as I enjoy some homemade country gum...

One of the best first season episodes of this show was the one where Liz met Floyd's girlfriend Liz Lemler and went into a complete Dubya-style meltdown, even barking out "I'm the decider!" whenever someone questioned the wisdom of her latest escalation. It was a hilarious episode from start to finish (it was also the one with Jack's family, each with their own pronunciation of "Donaghy"), and so I guess I can't blame them from going to the Iraq war parody well again. But I felt like the baseball plot of "Cougars" kept beating me over the head with all the obvious parallels. With Baldwin, Morgan, McBrayer and this writing team in place, there were definitely going to be some funny moments ("One word: surge!" "That's two words!"), but almost all of them were throwaway gags like the title of Tracy's tell-all book or Jack's charity that gives tuxedos to homeless people. Maybe if Jack hadn't announced his intentions to follow in Bush's footsteps, it might have all worked better, but the writers' need to spell it out in advance lest we not get it was distracting. (Also, the Liz version of this story worked in part because Liz is a liberal; seeing a devout Republican like Jack playing out failed Republican policy isn't as funny, even on a silly canvas like a Little League team.)

Liz's May-December cougar plot, meanwhile, has been done in various forms on lots of other shows (there was one sitcom in particular that did the gag where both halves of the couple lied about their age and didn't realize how far apart they were, and it's driving me nuts that I can't remember), and yet Tina Fey almost made it seem fresh with her usual willingness to appear completely pathetic. ("Oh... when will death come?") Frank's sexual confusion didn't quite work for me, but at least it led to one of the better Anne Heche-bashing lines I've heard in a while ("You can't be gay for one person -- unless you're a woman, and you meet Ellen.")

Ah, well. Win some, lose some. At least we have three more of these, while "The Office" is done for the duration.

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

Life: Orange man

Quick spoilers for "Life" coming up just as soon as I order personal pineapples for everyone on my Christmas and Chanukah lists...

In my review of the last episode to air, two weeks ago, I wrote:

If, in a hypothetical world where the strike wasn't taking place and "Life" wasn't almost certainly destined to be canceled once it ends, I were the showrunner hiring prospective writers, I'd hand them a copy of this episode and say, "This is what our show is."

Based on the show's pleasantly surprising back nine (or whatever) pick-up earlier in the week, I was wrong on the first end of that run-on sentence. Based on last night's episode -- which followed the "Farthingale" template to a T, with a beautiful tableau of a dead body, a case with personal parallels for Crews, and more intensity on the frame-up job -- I would guess that the "Life" staff dug "Farthingale" as much as I did.

I liked how, as with last nights "Pushing Daisies," the Murder of the Week turned out to be, if not beside the point, than not the emotional center of the episode. The murder case had its interesting moments -- the aforementioned tableau, Crews and Reese busting in on the kitten farm, the killer (played by Michael Gladis from "Mad Men") swallowing the guitar pick and looking every bit the cat that ate the canary when he was finished -- but the heart was in Crews' reading of the kidnapped boy's situation and his recognition of how they both had large chunks of their lives stolen away. (Not sure who's worse off; Charlie was old enough to understand what was being done to him, but at least he remembers his pre-prison life, where the kid's real mom is going to be a stranger to him.)

And it can't be said enough how much I enjoy watching Damian Lewis work. He's so at ease with himself that you understand why those runaways might talk to Crews even without the offer of the fruit, or why Reese would agree to give him back the knife and side with Charlie against her father. But then there are those moments when he gets his back up -- either with the kidnapper dad in the apartment, or when he sees Jack Reese enter the station with the manila envelope -- and you understand perfectly what prison did to him. I almost don't care about the plots anymore -- even though they've gotten much better since the first few episodes when I was ready to punt the show -- because I just want to see what Lewis is going to do next.

It seems as if Crews' rogue investigation is nearing a point where he either has to uncover the conspiracy or get booted off the force. I'm agnostic about that story arc's value, but I know some of you have said that's the main reason you're watching. Based on the improvement on the episodic stuff over the last month or so, would you still be as engaged with "Life" if we quickly find out who framed Charlie and why? Click here to read the full post

Pushing Daisies: Sticky situations

So my cable's back up, and thanks to those strike-inducing network websites, I've had a chance to catch up on some of last night's TV, which I'll be working my way through blogging in between viewing the Thursday NBC shows and Cowboys-Packers.

Spoilers for "Pushing Daisies" coming up just as soon as I dust myself for prints...

As someone who watches almost every episode of the shows I like, I'm more sensitive to over-use of formula than some (see my weekly complaints about "Reaper," though I still haven't gotten to see that one), and therefore more excited whenever a show deliberately gets away from that formula.

"Pushing Daisies" hasn't been too married to its formula, but this week's episode still seemed like a deliberate attempt to go off-template -- and a funny one, at that. What seemed like our Murder of the Week (complete with Jim Dale's "The facts were these...") was solved 10 minutes in, apparently never to be dealt with again (only for the Real Doll-loving killer to pop up again in prison), then the episode seemed to shift into a bunch of wacky hijinks between the Pie Ho's and Molly Shannon (ala the "Bar Wars" episodes of "Cheers"), and then we got a second, more important Murder of the Week -- and yet one that, in the end, was solved almost entirely via Jim Dale montage. And just when it seemed as if Ned had decided to put off telling Chuck about her dad so we could have one of those predictable "Why didn't you tell me the truth!" break-up moments around May sweeps, he just blurted out the news at episode's end. Never a dull moment in this one.

It helped to have so many funny bits -- none funnier than Emerson's "I mean, it's a broad generalization, but my guess is an attractive man who makes pies for a living shouldn't even spend a short amount of time in prison," but also including Olive baking a gun-pie, Chuck and Olive as cat burglars (complete with cleavage window for Olive), and another bit of formula undercutting, when Jim Dale said, "Then he considered how being locked in a prison was actually much worse than some silly metaphor about truth."

Don't know how many episodes remain from pre-strike production, but we're probably not going to see any of them till January, which makes Ned's confession a mid-season cliffhanger of sorts.

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

House: And the winners are...

Brief spoilers for last night's "House" -- including a photo of the newly-configured team, so avert your eyes, RSS reader types -- coming up just as soon as I turn on my garbage disposal...

As mentioned in the past, the representatives for the three winners leaked the news of their hiring to the trades weeks ago (I think Fox may have even put out a press release announcing Kal Penn's hiring), which meant I spent most of this episode trying to figure out what House's reason would be for dumping Amber. (And good on the writers for giving Anne Dudek a really nice showcase in her farewell episode. If there actually winds up being a pilot season this year, I hope between this and "Mad Men," she gets a good role.)

That knowledge of the results makes it hard to judge the episode as it was intended to be viewed, and made me focus more on the parts I didn't like -- the heavy-handed "sometimes, dying/losing is easier than living/winning" theme of both patients, in particular -- than on watching House manipulate Cuddy into the result he wanted. I also still don't feel like the writers ever gave us a justification for hiring Kutner; despite my Kal Penn love, Kutner hasn't been right enough or prominent enough, and they'd better start giving him more to do now that the team is established.

Even if the news hadn't been leaked, I probably would have figured it out by now, as Penn, Wilde and Jacobson were easily the three most recognizable faces of the entire search (not counting Michael Michele, I guess), but for those of you who managed to remain unspoiled, how did you react to both the episode and the results? Click here to read the full post

Journeyman: Sbarge saves

Spoilers for Monday night's "Journeyman" coming up just as soon as I buy an iPhone...

Reading the Nielsen tea leaves is supposed to be part of my job description, but I'm damned if I can figure out what Monday's numbers -- which, thanks in part to one of the worst "Monday Night Football" games ever, were up from the previous week but still terrible compared to "Chuck" and "Heroes" -- mean for the future of "Journeyman." Two more episodes are in the can, with the second one designed to provide some measure of closure in the event of cancellation, and I have no idea whether NBC will air either one. Yes, they promised that the show will be back in two weeks, but what if the already back-nined "Life" does significantly better in its Monday tryout next week? Given Hulu and other on-line methods of distribution, I imagine the other episodes will be available in some form, and there remains that slim chance that the strike could disrupt pilot season enough that even a charity case like "Journeyman" might get a small pick-up for next season, but I also wouldn't be shocked if "Blowback" was the last hour to air on the NBC television network.

And, if so, this wasn't a bad note to end on. No, we still have no clue about The Powers That Be's origins or motivations, but Jack has now been brought into the fold, Dan has learned the consequences of going off-mission, and Bennett did Dan the solid of killing that nosy FBI agent. Answers are always preferable, but we're at a good equilibrium point for the concept and characters now.

(Speaking of the FBI agent, how chilling was the moment where he starts ignoring Jack to mutter to himself about how "they" always need currency, implying -- as tachyon expert Dr. Langley suggested a few weeks ago -- there are always powerful men trying to track down and exploit time travelers?)

Raphael Sbarge did a good job in a showy role, playing convincingly nuts without chewing (much of) the scenery. Katie's been a problematic character for the show, but I pin that more on the writing than on Gretchen Egolf, whose fear in the apron/sandwich scene was very well done.

I kept wondering how far TPTB were going to let Dan go in his mission with the young Bennett. Would they, for instance, let him save Bennett as a kid and in turn undo the events of the previous episode and get adult Bennet out of his house? That might have been interesting, but would once again have led to a status quo reset. Jack needed to be in on the loop already, and I loved Reed Diamond's performance in the scene where Jack sees Livia across the newsroom.

(Also, had Dan rescued young Bennett, what would it mean for either of the girls Dan saved last week?)

I don't know that "Journeyman" ever has it in it to be a great show, but it's been solidly entertaining for the last five episodes or so. If it's done, I'll miss it but I don't think I'll mourn it, you know?

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