Buffy Lives! Maybe.

Like any other television fan, I'm known to get a little cranky when my favorite show gets cancelled too soon. But some shows have healthy runs that come to their natural ending points, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer was one of them. Other shows get dragged on past their prime, to their detriment. See also: Scrubs (now coming back for yet another season on ABC!) and Sex and the City. But now some braintrusts are itching to add Buffy to that list.

THR reports that the producers of the original film - you know, the one that came out in 1992 and bombed because the directing/producing team of Fran and Kaz Kuzui had mangled Joss Whedon's original script and turned it into a campy, schlocky mess - want to bring it back in feature film form. Sans Whedon, or any of the television cast.

Because that makes sense. If I had a turkey of a film that became a surprise television hit, I'd definitely try to re-do it as a film and strip away all the elements that made the TV version a success.

Five TV Shows That Need An End Date

Hey, remember when Lost first premiered, and it was really, really cool? With the WTF-polar-bear and mysterious monster and “Guys, where are we?” And then it got really confusing and half the characters died and the other half got arrested for DUI and we all kind of got over it? Well eff that, because Lost is back. Sure, it kind of sucks for you if you got into the show because of the specific characters from Season 1, because most of them remain dead and the rest have to share screentime with newer characters of varying quality. But the mysteries are kind of intriguing again, and answers are finally getting doled out at a decent pace. Clearly, setting a specific end date was the best thing that the show has ever done creatively because it has allowed them to focus on a specific story arc and stop, you know, sucking. Which got me thinking, what other shows would benefit from knowing when they’re going to end? Not counting, of course, Two and a Half Men, whose end date should have been somewhere in the same year it premiered.

1. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
This show kind of boxed itself into a corner, because pretty much every episode has to deal with the evil robots gunning for John Connor, and you know John’s gonna be fine because a few years later he’s yelling at some poor schmuck on the set of his next movie. Picking an expiration date will let them work towards tucking all those nasty loose ends into the movie continuity and save us from lame, supposedly nail-biting cliffhangers where we’re supposed to wonder whether this will finally be the episode where the evil robots win. (Hint: it’s not.)

2. How I Met Your Mother
Is she the mother? Wait, no, is she the mother? No, she’s the mother, right? It’s hard to tell whether the writers are teasing us intentionally or stalling for time. Eventually, they’re gonna have to reveal who the mother is, or the title of the show will just be silly. “Kids, let me tell you about the time I impregnated a transient behind a dumpster on Central Park West...” Setting an end date will let everyone breathe easier knowing roughly when the big reveal will come.

3. Gossip Girl
An end date? But we’ve only just met! True, Gossip Girl is only in its second season, and its quality is comparable to its first season – good news if you’re a fan, bad news if you’re not – but it can’t stay like this for long with so much drama and partner-swapping and scheming. They’re about one season away from an incest storyline. It doesn’t help that the kids are in theory going off to college in a season or two. So pick an end date and stick with it, because no one is gonna stick around to watch the adventures of Little J, aka Scrappy-Doo with the crappy ‘do. No one.

4. Heroes
Confession – I stopped watching this show last year. For all I know, they already set an end date, and it was two months ago. But on the off chance they’re still plowing ahead with this dreck, I heartily advise Kring and Co. set a stop date on this sucker and work on making a coherent story that builds into a larger arc, stat. Or, you know, keep hemorrhaging viewers, whatever.

5. Big Love
This would be a preemptive strike, because I feel like this season is the best one the show has had to date. But are you really able to keep track of all the Juniper Creek crazies? There’s a ton of them floating around, most just kind of doing their own thing while Bill builds his harem. This show needs to end with a bang, and that means laying the seeds now for an awesome finale two or three seasons, max, from now. Because, like Gossip Girl, Big Love is one tequila away from an incest storyline, and believe me, the therapy needed after that kind of thing is expensive.

Goodnight, Sweet Carrot-Topped Prince

Last night marked the end of an era – the last Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Oh, sure, soon enough you’ll be able to catch Conebone in Jay Leno’s old spot, but you’re fooling yourself if you think it’s going to be anything like the old Conan we knew and loved.

I admit, I have strayed. I recently shifted my fealty from Conan to Craig Ferguson. But I spent most of my high school years watching Conan, Andy, the PimpBot, Masturbating Bear, and the rest of the Late Night crew. I even remember playing hooky from school to catch tapings a few times. And while I found the show a little toothless in recent years – to be honest, it was never the same for me after Andy Richter left – I’m still sad that the era is over.

So how was the last show anyway? Pretty good, as it turns out. Andy dropped by, and Conan made some sappy speeches but also kept the funny going with a hilarious bit on people who play 1800s-style baseball. It was a great send-off for a scrappy little show. And now, you can watch Jimmy Fallon in Conan’s old spot. Or, you know, just watch Craig Ferguson dammit.

Not Going Gentle Into That Good Broadcasting Night

My favorite shows have a tendency to die early deaths. Some linger in the limbo of unresolved cliffhangers (Popular, Dark Angel), some get resolution in other forms of media (Angel’s comic book continuation, Firefly’s big screen outing Serenity, the upcoming Dead Like Me straight-to-DVD movie), and some are given the chance to write a satisfying finale episode before they’re yanked off the air (Birds of Prey, The O.C.). Almost all of them, however, get cancelled before they get to tell all the stories they wanted to. So if one of my favorite shows gets a miracle new lease on life via another network, I should be happy, right? So why can I barely bring myself to watch Scrubs in its final season on ABC?

It’s not just being too lazy to switch my Tivo from the NBC version to the ABC version. I did watch two of the first episodes this season. At least I think I did. They had the little ABC watermark on the bottom right so I assumed they were new, but I couldn’t help feeling like I’d seen the episodes before. After eight years watching these characters, I have to admit I’ve kind of grown tired of J.D. and Turk being manchildren, Elliot being a neurotic mess, Dr. Cox’s funny, angry rants. Every joke hit the same beat we’ve seen over and over, and the overarching moral “lesson” wasn’t fresh either. It’s become the kind of diluted, hacky tripe I’ve come to expect from sitcoms gone long in the tooth like Two and a Half Men, the difference being Two and a Half Men was never funny, while Scrubs, in my opinion, was pretty sharp in its first few seasons. There’s definitely something to be said about making a graceful exit. Those shows cut down in their prime will live fondly on in my memory, while Scrubs – which I once loved quite a bit – now feels like a houseguest who has overstayed his welcome.

Time Warner to Stewart/Colbert Fans: Sucks to Be You!

Time Warner Cable decided to give its customers a special New Years treat: cutting off their access to all Viacom channels. Without Dora the Explorer, what will stoned fratboys watch at night? Oh, no worries, Viacom doesn't own Cartoon Network. Aqua Teen Hunger Force to the rescue! Anyway, Nikki Finke has all the details here if you are inclined to read the whole back and forth.

This time last year, this might have upset me. But these days I'm calmer, wiser...and I switched to Comcast in June, so whatever, not my problem. I'm inclined to side with Viacom on this one, though, even with their shitty business practices, because Time Warner is kind of a pain in the ass. When one of my crazy roommates wanted to get cable in her room, instead of letting her get her own account they made me put it under my account (that I had opened a year prior) because of how our building was zoned or whatever - there couldn't be two accounts or something like that. I don't know, they didn't explain it well and after two hours on the phone I finally said screw it and authorized the charge because I had stuff to do and my roommate was whining. And though she was never late with her half because I scared the bejesus out of her - you thought I didn't see you crossing yourself every time I walked past like I was Rosemary's damnassed baby strolling down the hall, and yes, I was also surprised to learn that "Whore of Babylon" doesn't have a direct translation in your language, either that or you wanted me to hear you say it. I'm sorry that American girls wear pants and tops that are not full-on turtlenecks and makeup and jeez! Chill! - it was still annoying.

Also, they would update the software on the cable box, like, every week, and the TV would be unavailable for a few hours in the middle of the night, which was the only time I had to watch TV at that time so that sucked. And the resetting would mess up my Tivo because the cable box would be off post-resetting and I wouldn't notice for a while because the whole point of Tivo is to not have to watch live TV, and that glitch made me miss the final sign off of the WB network that my Tivo was supposed to record, and yes, it was a bunch of programs I'd already seen a million times before but it was the signing off of the network I'd spent most of my formative teen years watching, and I would have been home to watch it but my magazine meeting ran late because my EIC assigned the cover story to a literal crackhead who smokes crack and, big surprise, it came out like it was written by a crackhead and since I was the editor I had to spend the whole night at the office trying to figure out which interview quotes were with real people and which ones were with the voices in my crackhead writer's head! And then rewrite the whole thing so that it no longer looked like it was written by a crackhead! That was awesome!

So yeah, I don't really care who's right and who's wrong in this Time Warner/Viacom imbroglio. All I know is that Time Warner sucks. If you're geographically able to, I highly recommend you switch to Comcast. Their customer service is awesome. (That's the non-sarcastic "awesome" this time - you can tell by the lack of italics.) Last week, I called to drop down to the basic package on account of being unemployed and brokeass, and the guy instead found me a promotion that lets me keep my HBO/Showtime/Starz and pay the basic rate. And if I had a psycho roommate now, I bet Comcast wouldn't make me share an account with her crazy, hatin' ass.

2008 in Television: My Picks

2008 wasn’t exactly television’s best year ever. The writer’s guild strike shut down television for a few months, and the ripples were felt all the way into the fall season, which had little in the way of interesting new fare to offer, and promising 2007 shows lost either their audience (Pushing Daisies), their creative drive (Dirty Sexy Money), or both (...Dirty Sexy Money) in the downtime and never recovered. But a few episodes did manage to stand out in this rocky year. Here are my picks:

30 Rock: “Believe in the Stars”
Oprah’s guest turn was everything I wanted it to be and more. As hilarious as the first twenty minutes are (Tracey in whiteface! Leia Liz!), it’s the final reveal that makes this episode a classic.

Entourage: “The All Out Fall Out”
In a season that was hit or miss creatively and stuffed to the mercury-laden-gills with filler, this episode, which featured Ari throwing down against his rival Adam Davies with hilarious results, stood out.

Fringe: “Same Old Story”
The creepy giant baby medical mystery that showed just how intriguing – and gross – this new show could be.

Gossip Girl: “Woman on the Verge”
I was torn between this episode, “New Haven Can Wait” (for alma mater pride – no, not Yale, Columbia! Which played the part of Yale! Unconvincingly, for anyone remotely familiar with the look of either campus!) and “It’s A Wonderful Lie” (for delicious Chuck/Blair sniping), but I finally settled on this episode from the end of Season 1, for the wonderful, “less judgey Breakfast Club” rare show of camaraderie among the Upper East Siders.

House: “House’s Head”/“Wilson’s Heart”
I haven’t been a fan of other House episodes that made a cast member into a patient (like the Foreman episode from a few seasons ago), but this one works beautifully, and the ending makes me cry every time. Farewell, Cutthroat Bitch, you will be missed.

Lost: “The Constant”
If this episode – featuring Des and his long lost love Penny in a head tripping time travel love story – didn’t make you tear up even a little, you have a heart of stone, my friend.

One Tree Hill: “Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.”
One Tree Hill, against all odds, has actually gotten better as each season goes on. (Then again, most of Season 1 left it with nowhere to go but up.) This completes the trifecta of television episodes that wrenched my heart out this year as the OTH gang dealt with the senseless shooting death of one of their friends.

The Office: “The Surplus”
This was the first episode in two seasons that reminded me how effing funny this show can be. Pam’s passive-aggressive notes were classic.

Pushing Daisies: “Comfort Food”
I had a hard time narrowing it down to one episode of the dear, delectable, dead-as-a-doornail Daisies, but I settled on this one because it featured an appearance from Beth Grant as Marianne Marie Beetle, reprising her role from Daisies creator Bryan Fuller’s other tragically-cancelled-before-its-time show, Wonderfalls.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: "Samson & Delilah"
The second season started with a bang - a lot of them, in fact, as the Connors fled from Cameron gone rogue. Also, John lost his loopy locks, and Shirley Manson made her debut as the freakiest urinal/robot to date.

Weeds: “Lady’s A Charm”
Nancy makes her first, hilarious run down to Mexico. A great ep in an uneven season.

So that’s it! My best and worst movie lists will be delayed until 2009 because I want to see a few more of the recent releases before I finalize my picks (though I doubt anything will knock Cloverfield off the #1 spot), which, by the way, my 2009 movie wish list includes fewer studios packing all the good stuff into the last two weeks of the year. As for my 2009 television wishlist, I’d love for some miracle to save Pushing Daisies. I’d love for 30 Rock, The Office, and Gossip Girl to remain as strong as their past few episodes have been. And I truly hope that Dollhouse isn’t a complete mess.

Have a safe and happy New Year, drink too much, and sleep it off tomorrow!

Lyons and Mankiewicz Desecrate Corpse of Siskel, Laugh

Earlier this year, Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert were booted from their syndicated movie review show At the Movies and replaced with Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies and the embryonic Ben Lyons, who comes from E! but whose best credential for the job comes from being the loinfruit of film critic Jeffrey Lyons. While Richard Roeper lacked the dearly departed Gene Siskel’s gentle intelligence that was a nice balance to Ebert’s tottering loopiness, Ebert and Roeper were at least solid reviewers whose show was entertainment in its own right. Then came Ben and Ben.

I put a finite amount of stock into movie reviews to begin with because my own taste runs idiosyncratic to most mainstream tastes, and the things I love tend to be universally loathed by critics and even my friends. Someone recently suggested I have bad taste, and I countered that maybe I’m a maverick, and they counter-countered that maybe I’m a maverick with bad taste. Fair enough. Either way, it doesn’t make movie reviews very useful for me personally. I like Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, because their reviews are informative and well-written even if I don’t ultimately agree with many of their verdicts, but they’re about the only ones I can stand. And yet, as I’ve mentioned before, every week I watch At the Movies. Why? I can’t fully answer that question myself because this show is just terrible, and there’s not even the schadenfreude value I derive from, say, certain Fox News shows.

Then again, that’s not fully true. After all, it is kind of fun to watch Mankiewicz and Lyons snipe at each other like passive-aggressive little bitches for thirty minutes a week. Lyons, who’s about two decades Mankiewicz’s junior, for example, has lately taken to calling his co-reviewer “Mank” and “Manky” on air. Next week, I swear he’s gonna tweak Manky’s nose. It’s amusing to see the vein in Mankiewicz’s forehead throb a little every time Lyons does that. And Lyons has always been ludicrously soft in his reviews, mostly because he clearly has his eye on being more a part of the movie world than just dishing out reviews. To be an effective reviewer, you really do have to euthanize your dreams of actively participating in the field you’re reviewing. But this week, Mankiewicz took Lyons to task after he positively reviewed Bedtime Stories (which is produced by Disney, which produces At the Movies, FYI): “I don’t know where to begin. I didn’t like one part of this movie. You weren’t right, I believe, about any single point you made in this entire review.” To which Lyons chuckled in the vacant way frat boys tend to when you’re verbally castrating them, and they’re confused because you’re using hard words and, hey, bro, can’t we just hug it out or am I gonna have to roofie you again?

Not that Mankiewicz is without fault either. He kicked off his review of Special with, “The name of the movie is actually Special, unfortunately, the movie itself is not.” That’s just...I can’t even.... I can’t. I can’t. Jesus, that’s bad. That’s the kind of clever line you come up with while on hour five of an all-night bender, and you write it down because it’s oh my god so brilliant you’ll make millions off this...but then you sober up in a day or two, look at it, and go, “Oh man, thank god I didn’t drunk text that to anyone.” Then you burn it. And scatter the ashes to the seven continents lest it reform itself. You do not say it on national television.

But Lyons is just the worst, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Two months ago, Ebert chided Lyons for, well, being an insatiable starfucker. Which again goes back to needing to separate yourself from whatever you’re reviewing. This is a problem with any TV show that reviews movies, though, because there’s usually some kind of ethical problem afoot when the same studio putting out a movie is bankrolling your cushy reviewing lifestyle. (This is, of course, becoming an issue in print media as well as more conglomerates stick their fingers into all sorts of pies, but it doesn't seem nearly as rampant yet.) But watching At the Movies, I sometimes want to break out a flowchart of who-owns-what to figure out why Lyons and Mankiewicz pan or praise movies seemingly arbitrarily. I’m sure following the moneytrail will clear a lot of that up. Lyons is just...unsettling. He looks like that intern you don’t ask to get you coffee because you’re pretty sure he’ll spit in it, or worse. He recently summed up his review of Yes Man with “I say ‘no’ to Yes Man,” which is almost as bad as Manky’s Special quip. He’s just vacant and entitled and...no.

There is one good thing about the show, however. Mankiewicz has taken up Ebert’s mantle of creepy overshares. He ended his review of Marley and Me with, “The film got sweet and tender and finally focused, and at the end, in a crowded theatre, I hugged a total stranger.” Thanks for the nightmares, Mank!

Morning Show Madness

What the hell is wrong with morning news shows lately? Back in high school I'd watch The Today Show every day while getting ready for school, and I seem to remember it being somewhat normal, with Katie, Matt, Al, and Ann having fun but acting like regular human beings, not Bellevue escapees. And then I worked evenings for a while, then went to college and scheduled all my classes around my nocturnal habits, so I went a long time without watching any television before noon. But my current internship requires me to watch a copious amount of morning TV, and holy heck is it all insane. Over on The Today Show, Katie's gone, Matt peaces out halfway through the broadcast, and they've added a fourth hour hosted by Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb that regularly devolves into alcohol-fueled shenanigans. And the other morning shows aren't faring much better, either. Here are just a few of the recent wacky morning show clips I've found and edited:

*On Good Morning America, a disgusting demonstration of a Baby Alive doll causes Diane Sawyer to double over in embarrassment while her co-anchor mumbles "I know this is important, it's not good television but I know it's important...". The producer then cuts suddenly and inexplicably to commercial.

*In The Today Show's hilarious fourth hour, Kathie Lee decided to teach the world all about Irish People when Enya comes to visit. Specifically how we all look alike, and how we can all play either the flute or the violin. I took lessons on both when I was a kid, and my kindest act of altruism to date has been the cessation of said lessons. I'm not completely musically hapless, however - I sing very well, which is more than I can say for Kathie Lee, whose lack of pitch doesn't stop her from joining in on a gleeful slaughtering of Silent Night! A week prior, she'd made a joke about rising to fame via the "casting couch" that suddenly doesn't seem so jokeish.

*I've written before about some of the insane stuff on Fox News that I have to watch for my internship, but my favorite by far is their morning show, Fox and Friends. The anchors simply do not give a shit what they say, they're just there to have fun, man! Don't harsh their buzz! Like all media everywhere, they did a piece on Twilight the day it was released. Unlike all media everywhere, they claimed that 81% of all females - "better known as babes" - planned on seeing the movie. They also claimed that most teen girls were turned on to the series by their mothers, which, no. But I found my new favorite Fox and Friends clip on Friday, when a Hooters girl came on to promote something for the restaurant and the anchors pretty much kidnapped her and made her read half the sports update, then dragged her over to the couch for a segment. The girl clearly looks terrified, and as soon as they cut to a graphic for the "annoyance law" segment she flees, and the male anchors instead turn their attention to their female cohort. They begin literally poking her for an awkward amount of time. Later, she has what sounds like some kind of seizure on air while doing a voiceover.

By the way, in case you can't tell, one of my favorite parts of making these videos is finding the perfect still teaser screencap to encapsulate the insanity contained within the clip. If you want to see all the clips I've pulled for Gawker to date, I've been keeping a list here. That list is a mix of clips I was assigned to pull for the editors who needed them and clips I found and pitched myself that the editors chose to pick up for the site, but all of the morning show antics I linked to in this post are ones I found myself.

But that's not all! I put two Fox and Friends clips I pulled that didn't get used up on YouTube. This one is from November 21st, featuring a "new craze" (a dubious claim at best) called chain surfing, which involves jumping on a chain and trying not to fall off. It's about as safe as it sounds and I can only assume the F+F crew is trying to force the hand of Darwin and kill off some of their less intelligent viewers. (Does Fox even believe in evolution?) At any rate, the best part is at the end, when one of the anchors calls the weatherman "white boy" which serves only to confuse the oft-confused weatherman:



This next one is from December 12th, when Fox and Friends took a moment out of reporting the "news" to reassert their douche supremacy. Apparently, McDonald's put an anti-Starbucks billboard in front of Starbucks HQ in Seattle, and the Fox and Friends anchors would like to remind you that they pulled the same lame move first, with CNN, in Atlanta, back in who the hell cares because these people are insane:



I don't know when it became mandatory for morning news show anchors to drop a boatload of peyote before going on air, but clearly it's something that reaches across all channels. Look for Fox and Friends to do a trend piece on it in 2009.

I'm Dreaming Of A Christmas Where I Don't Fall On My Ass

I think this is the first white Christmas/December 25th we've had in the northeast in a while. And frankly I don't find it all it's cracked up to be since my natural klutzery combined with evil sidewalk conditions led to me sliding so epically down an ice sheet on Tuesday that I only avoided luging into oncoming traffic by grabbing onto the bumper of a parked car. So I didn't get mangled or anything, but in the brief, icy moments where death seemed absolutely imminent, I couldn't help but think: "Crap. I'm going to die wearing purple boots with little yellow ducks on them."

Next year for Christmas, I'm asking for soccer cleats.

But hey, you know who does love the cold weather? Late night comedians! Or so it would seem, judging from last Thursday's dispatches from David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, and my new favorite, Craig Ferguson. Because they all told cornball jokes about the weather. (And only the rakish, devilishly handsome Ferguson seemed in on the joke of the joke.) I put together this clip, which will probably get TOS'd off YouTube any minute, so enjoy it while you can:



I also uploaded this clip I filmed at a The Academy Is... concert at Roseland Ballroom last month. It's William Beckett performing their new holiday song "Winter Passing" for one of the first times in public. It's a partial clip because my camera is lame and only does video in 60 second increments, and it's shaky because I tend to bop around a lot, but it should give you a nice woozy just-enough-vodka feeling that's perfect for whatever holiday you celebrate (or don't):



You can also see the less-vodka-y official video here.

Anyway, if you're lucky enough to not have familial obligations (or can get out of them) tonight, you can always head to your local cineplex and catch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which opens today, or Slumdog Millionaire if you haven't already. (And if you haven't, why the hell not?) As for me, I'll be loading up my car with presents and German girls (well, okay, just the one German girl, my dear friend who is spending the holidays with us) and driving out to Pennsylvania, where I'm more likely to hit a deer than luge into oncoming traffic. Really not sure whether that's a win, loss, or wash. As long as I survive long enough to see Benjamin Button (and don't perish while wearing dorkish boots) I'll be happy.

Stylista: Tools For Fashion

I’m willing to admit I was perhaps a little hasty when I said Red Eye might be the worst show on television. I’d forgotten all about Stylista. Stylista is a reality show on the CW by the masterminds behind America’s Next Top Model. It airs tonight at 9 p.m. if you’re feeling masochistic (though your time would be better spent watching one of the last ever episodes of Pushing Daisies at 8, and then re-watching it again at 9). The prize is a job at Elle magazine, a paid New York apartment for one year, and a clothing allowance at H&M. The judges are Elle’s Anne Slowey doing her best Streep-as-Wintour and Joe Zee doing his best...whatever. The contestants are pretty much universally the worst people in the world.

Each week viewers get to watch the wannabe fashionistas stumble through lame challenges ripped off from The Devil Wears Prada, and it would probably be an innocuous enough show in brighter economic times. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the earlier SOAPNet flop, The Fashionista Diaries, except that Diaries had no "prize" and Stylista manages to be even more staged. But in case you haven’t heard, all media everywhere is curled up, sobbing and shivering, trying to stave off death by gulping down gin and thinking of happier times in a very Dickensian manner. So it’s an extra special little knife-twist to know that one of these twits will land a job that most of the unemployed media-types would sell their left kidney for. In related news, I am willing to barter a kidney in exchange for an editorial assistant position at a New York magazine or publishing house - e-mail me for details (and include your blood type)!

To say that every one of the contestants is unfit for the job might be an exaggeration – the first few were booted off before we could survey the extent of what I presume is, judging by the performances of their peers, their general unworthiness to lay grubby fingers on a mouse and click on InDesign. So hey, maybe the cute Columbia guy with the funky hair isn’t a total tool, but we’ll never know because he got booted off first and instead we were left with DyShaun, who nimbly worked every gay male fashionista cliché but included the unwelcome addition of being a petty, misogynistic hosebag with no sense of style. And Megan, who might actually be Rosemary’s baby. And Johanna, who takes herself way too seriously for the insane, inane world of fashion.

The only contestant I was rooting for, Kate, was booted last week. (Before her, I was rooting for the guy who dressed like a character out of A Cockwork Orange, because his faux British accent amused me, as did his ascot.) Kate quickly made enemies of everyone in the house because of her inexperience, large and uncontainable chest, and...nope, that’s just about it. It was a pretty grisly show of girl-on-girl crimes week after week. Kate had limited fashion experience but good instincts, and she seemed genial enough. A little annoying, willing to throw everyone in arm’s reach under a bus and then find another bus to throw that bus under, sure, but compared to the other harpies she was stuck working with, she at least had something resembling manners. It was brutal and uncomfortable to watch DyShaun and Megan snipe after her week after week, so at least her elimination will spare us those shenanigans in these last few episodes. Never have I seen so many inept, ill-mannered morons bleating together in one place. None of the Stylista nimrods deserve a job at Elle – they deserve to have their faces chewed off by the very wolves that raised them. The knowledge that one of these ninnies might take this job, rise through the ranks, and be in a position to oversee me one day is enough to make me curl up into a sobbing, shivering ball and gulp down a bottle of gin. And I don’t even like gin.

Black Friday Alternatives

Take some time away from your shopping (or from contemplating the horrors of consumerist America) with some quality entertainment tonight. Here are a few suggestions.

1. The Psych 2008 Christmas Special

The clearly-superior-to-CBS-rip-off-The-Mentalist fake psychic / real detective show is back with a Christmas special tonight on USA. I’m sure it will air a few dozen times between now and Christmas so there’s technically no rush to go see it, but all the cool kids are gonna watch it tonight, and you want to be one of the cool kids, don’t you?

2. Australia

I’ll do a full review this weekend, but I went to go see it this afternoon and holy crap is it fantastic. Normally, anything resembling a Western makes me break out into hives, but never fear, this is a big, lush, sweeping romantic epic that’s sure to please any fans of Baz’s other movies (Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet), as well as anyone with a still-beating heart in their chest.

3. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and The Namesake

Thanksgiving’s all about celebrating immigration (and the slaughter of indigenous people...with pie). In that vein (immigration, not slaughter), why not pick up two great books exploring recent immigration experiences, The Brief Life of Oscar Wao by Dominican author Junot Diaz and The Namesake by Indian author Jhumpa Lahiri.


Or just watch this hilarious clip from yesterday's Thanksgiving Day Parade:

Red Eye: A Bad Show, or the Worst Show?

I recently started an internship where my primary responsibility is to watch assigned television shows looking for (then pulling, editing, and uploading) newsworthy, interesting, or entertaining clips for the web. On my first day, I dutifully moved down the list of shows until I hit one I’d never heard of, a Fox News offering called Red Eye. (I’m not exactly Fox News’ target demographic.) I started to watch, and after about five minutes I turned to my editor, slightly alarmed. “Is this a real show?” I asked. Part of me suspected they were hazing the new girl by making me watch a compilation of terrible collegehumor.com clips or something. My editor assured me that Red Eye is a real show that real people pay money to produce. So I watched. And after it was over, I told my editor that I was a worse person for having watched that.

Red Eye is, in theory, a funny look at the day’s news that airs on Fox News every morning at three a.m. It’s exactly like The Soup, if The Soup was daily, aired in the dead of night, focused on news instead of pop culture, was packed to the gunny walls with slanderously racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and homophobic remarks, and was painfully unfunny. Which I guess means it’s nothing like The Soup. Of course something like this would air on Fox News.

Fox News and I go way back. In 2006 there was an incident at my school that made a lot of national headlines, and Fox News picked up on it and held on like a monkey with a damned banana. They spent the rest of that semester and a good part of the next trolling for non-stories to make us look bad. For example, I wrote a completely innocuous newspaper article that had a section on our school’s S&M club. A few weeks later, Ann Coulter’s reporting on how depraved the student body is because we have an S&M club. Because I was the humor editor for our newspaper’s spin-off magazine at the time, it was my job to try and comment on all the insanity, but I found it oddly difficult to make fun of Fox News because they were insane on a level that seemed to exist outside the confines of reality. I do recall writing one spoof article that was so vitriolic and unambiguously offensive that my co-editor had to reverse our usual dynamic and tell me I’d gone too far – that was usually my role. The toned down version was still pretty terrible and I’m unbelievably relieved that the archives for that semester are not online.

So there I am on Friday, watching Red Eye, feeling far less alarmed than I was in my first outing. Somewhere along the way, the show kind of grew on me. That, or Stockholm Syndrome has set in. I’m now ashamed to admit I’ll occasionally flip it on at home when I have insomnia. It’s just so surreal to see that many racist/homophobic/misogynistic/anti-Semitic comments packed into one hour. Sometimes, a particularly crazy homeless person will come onto your subway car, ranting about the government and Jews or whatever, and you don’t want to stare because he might try to dash in your brains with a brick, and also he smells like pee. But with Red Eye, there’s a television set standing between you and the crazy ranting man! You can openly stare and not even feel guilty because, against all odds, the crazy ranting man is getting paid to do this! For all you know, Greg Gutfeld might not even smell like pee!

Anyway, after the show I wanted to see if any of the other episodes this week had covered a particular topic in the faux news alerts that kick off the show, so I went through the episodes I had on hand. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did find something else - a bizarre pattern of picking on Belgium. Belgium is not a country I’d ever given much thought to outside the confines of French class. I know they have good waffles and chocolate, and I sometimes confuse Belgium with Germany and Austria because I have an astoundingly terrible sense of geography and global politics, but that’s about it. But here were two clips in one week, picking on Belgium for no discernible reason. Still looking for the other topic I wanted, I hit up Hulu to see what they had, and the first thing I clicked on, an episode from September, featured more Belgium mockery. I found the arbitrariness of it hilarious – Belgium! Who in the world has a deathgrudge against Belgium? – so I compiled the clips and sent them off. The managing editor, Gabriel Snyder, picked it up and wrote a hilarious post about it. So if you go here, you can read his hilarious post and see video proof that someone at Red Eye has a grudge against Belgium. (Belgium! Really!)

Earlier in the day, I had pulled another hilarious clip off Fox and Friends, Fox News’ answer to the Today Show, which is only slightly (slightly) more PC than Red Eye. In the clip, Fox and Friends claimed that 81% of all “babes” were planning to see Twilight, and that most young girls were turned on to the book series by their mothers. (Which may have been true in the 80s/90s when I was a kid pilfering my mom’s V.C. Andrews, but I think it’s safe to say that nowadays, moms are following their daughters into the Twilight, not the other way around.) The clip was picked up by both Defamer with New 'Twilight' Report Affirms Fox News's Commitment to Cultural Tone-Deafness and Jezebel with 80% Of All Women Babes Plan To See Twilight. Fox News might in fact be my new favorite place to go for I’m-laughing-at-not-with-you hilarity.

As far as Red Eye, I can’t in good conscience recommend that you watch this show on TV. If everyone reading this blog tuned into Red Eye all at once, their audience would grow 1000% to a staggering twenty viewers, and that would send the producers the wrong message. But it’s worth pulling up some clips on YouTube and marveling at the insanity. Just make sure to cleanse your palate by tuning into The Soup on Friday.

Comic Domination

A bit of media round-up for a potentially pre-apocalyptic election eve, since lots of comic book-inspired movies and TV shows are in the news this week.

First, Ain’t It Cool News has managed to get ahold of some on-set pictures of the new Sherlock Holmes adaptation starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Defamer also has a cool picture of Downey in flight. But Monsters and Critics takes the cake with this sizzling report that begins with, “Robert Downey Jr. set his crotch on fire while shooting his new film.” Which is possibly the best lede I have ever read. I’m really excited for this movie. I always liked the idea of Holmes more than the adaptations I’ve seen, and I’m hoping this new one will change that.

Second, Marvel recently announced they would be replacing Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle as Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes for Iron Man 2 and the Avengers movie that will follow Iron Man 2 and will (hopefully) pay off that Samuel L. Jackson cameo in the post-credits of Iron Man. Iron Man’s core fanbase reacted, well, about as well as you’d expect. This news came as a bit of surprise to most of the non-fanboy industry as well, because when your movie grosses over $300 million, you usually try not to mess with the winning formula in the sequels. Remember how well that worked for New Coke? This affects more than who Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark will snark at on-screen for two and a half hours, as the Rhodey character will logically take on more importance in the ensuing movies, assuming they follow the comics, where Rhodes dons his own metal suit to become Iron Man’s sidekick War Machine. Marvel, being a movie studio, didn’t come right out and explain their decision, though a few interesting reports have surfaced. Of course, there is no good reason for getting fired when you’re the one on the receiving end of the pink slip, so I doubt anything’s gonna make Howard feel better when the trailers for Iron Man 2, The Avengers, and maybe even War Machine start rolling out in the next few years. The latter movie would be my pick for the reason behind the cast change, though. Howard was good in Iron Man, certainly, but he was on the bland side and didn’t rise to the great heights of Downey, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jeff Bridges, which was fine for the first movie because all you really had to do in that movie was not completely suck and those other three could carry you. But with a potential spin-off franchise in the works, it makes sense to get someone with a little more oomph. Is Cheadle the man for the job? I don’t know. My first reaction was “Really? Hm...” But I’ve since been unable to think of anyone else I could see more in the role, so I suppose it’s worth waiting to see how this shakes out.

Terrence Howard isn’t the only one out of a job. NBC axed the two top Heroes producers, Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander, who had been with the show since its earlier, happier days of cultural relevance. E! managed to dig up some dirt and found an interesting place to point fingers:

"Someone had to take the fall." This is what a reliable inside source on Heroes tells me of the firings of Loeb and Alexander. "NBC is not happy with the current status of the show, and there had to be a visual and tangible change in the course of action."

The final blow came from last week's Entertainment Weekly cover, which I'm told was reported on under the ruse of a promotional story for the series. The surprise—a cover story pointing out Heroes' third-season flaws and fan discontent—did not go over well with higher-ups.

Oh, silly execs, you can’t trust journalists! (Except me, because I always weenie out of going in for the kill on my stories, which is why I stick with puff pieces whenever possible. I’d rather forfeit a Pulitzer than be universally reviled. Because I am a weenie.) Seriously, your show is floundering, bleeding audience members and getting slammed by critics, and you think Entertainment Weekly, one of the few pop culture-based media outlets to weave actual hard-nosed pieces in among the usual softball stories, is gonna write a little hot air piece for you?

At any rate, I’m sure the higher-ups think this movie will reinvigorate the failing show, but I see it more like writing DOOM! on the wall. I finally watched the first few episodes of Heroes this season, and I was struck by overwhelming apathy. I just don’t care anymore. It’s not awful, it’s not even all that different from the first season, I just...can’t bring myself to care anymore. I suspect the show was always fated to have a great first season then fizzle out. Maybe it should have been a really cool movie trilogy instead of a television show.

There are some more great-sounding comic book movies on the horizon. SciFi.com reports that David Lindsay-Abaire, the playwright responsible for some amazing plays like Fuddy Meers, Kimberly Akimbo, and the Pulitzer-winning Rabbit Hole, is in negotiations to write Spider-Man 4. After the sticky mess that was Spider-Man 3, this is a welcome bit of good news. I was lucky enough to have Mr. Lindsay-Abaire speak to my playwriting class last year, where he proved himself to be very thoughtful about the nature of human interactions and confronting one’s own fears. It gives me hope for a more character-driven Spidey movie with crackling dialogue and imaginative plot...not unlike Lindsay-Abaire’s plays.

Finally, Variety says that Sam Mendes will be directing a feature version of the comic book Preacher. Though I won’t get my hopes up until the cameras start rolling, considering a television series was in development by HBO until it suddenly wasn’t and this isn’t the first time a feature adaptation has tried to get off the ground, if this does in fact materialize it will be great news for both comic and movie fans. The Preacher series is fantastic, rife with wit and moral dilemmas, and I can’t wait to see who would be cast as the alcoholic Irish vampire Cassidy, as well as erstwhile-hitwoman-slash-love-interest Tulip O’Hare and of course the Preacher himself, Jesse Custer, who is accidentally possessed by the offspring of a demon and an angel and might have more power than God himself who, by the way, is missing. Of course, when I think “comic book movie”, the first name that comes to mind isn’t exactly Sam Mendes, who is better known for his thoughtful meditations and closet of Oscar hardware, but he might be just the person to lend more gravitas to a genre that, even after The Dark Knight’s success, is still marginalized by the industry if not audiences.

Fall 2008 TV Season (So Far): Part 3

Part 3 of the TV season so far:

Pushing Daisies – Words cannot express how happy I am that this show is back. Words can, however, express how upset I am that the premier tanked in the ratings. I knew I was right to be worried about ABC doing a crappy job promoting this gem of a series. I have to commend the second season premier episode on integrating a premise explanation for new viewers in a way that was still entertaining for the returning audience. The first episode, “Bzzzzzzzzz!”, was great. It featured Autumn Reeser, late of The O.C., and was that great combination of funny, sweet, and morbid that makes Pushing Daisies such a wonderful show. I mean, I have a pathological fear of bees that normally renders me unable to even watch them on TV, so any show that can make me love a whole episode full of buzzing, crawling, stinging bees (...yuck) deserves major kudos. I’m just praying for an uptick in viewership and some patience on ABC’s end.

Dirty Sexy Money – This show, on the other hand, did nothing to catch new viewers up on the old storylines. Hell, I saw every ep of season one and even I had trouble remembering what had happened. There were also some tonal issues. I think the show wants to be wacky in the way most shows by David E. Kelley end up being (after trying to be serious for a season or two), but it’s fighting it with serious plotlines and it just doesn’t mesh. I hope the show pulls it together soon because it has potential. Also, I miss Samaire Armstrong, she brought a great vivacity to the show. I hope they find a way to bring her back once she’s dealt with her personal issues.

Desperate Housewives – Oh. Look. Susan and Mike are broken up. Again. Like that’ll last, them being one of those predestined-by-the-pilot couples and all. I wish they’d find another storyline for them. Anyway, that aside I think the fast forward has been good for the show, it’s given it some of the old spunk back.

Survivor: Gabon – It’s funny that a show known for its gratuitous blurring of potentially exposed naughty bits somehow let some full-frontal made nudity slip by. (Okay, full-frontal is probably pushing it…I’d say quarter-frontal.) Anyway, the season so far has been pretty predictable. There are jackassy men, normal men, twiggy women, normal women, and the oldest female got booted early on. Survivor is the same every year, and you either love it or you hate it.

The Life and Times of Tim – This new HBO animated show reminds me of Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, but less squiggly. It’s okay, worth watching if you’re too lazy to change the channel after Entourage but not exactly destination television.

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson – The inclusion of this show will scandalize anyone who’s known me for a while, since I long ago swore my undying allegiance to Conebone. Trust me, I feel like a dirty, dirty traitor saying this, but Conan’s lost his edge. Where once he was subversive and hilarious, nowadays his act is nearly as toothless as Leno and Letterman. My Tivo has been on the fritz for the past few months, recording the wrong channel half the time. I started catching bits and pieces of Craig Ferguson over the summer when my Tivo accidentally taped him instead of Big Brother After Dark or Robot Chicken/Aqua Teen Hunger Force. And he was like a revelation. Biting, off-beat humor, self-deprecating without being self-congratulatory…it was like Conan ten years ago. I still think his take on the bailout plan is the funniest and most incisive I’ve seen to date: “This is the biggest robbery in American history […] Here are the facts: Wall Street are evil, they got really stupid and they got drunk on greed. What happened is, they crashed their Ferrari, and now they’re crying like little bitches and they want their Uncle Sam to buy them a new one. No!” His guests are not usually A-level – tonight he had Barry Sonnenfeld, not exactly a household name – but Craig gets them to give hilariously entertaining interviews that are much sharper than the pabulum patter between most A-listers and the other late night hosts. When Conan finally moves to the earlier spot and isn’t up against Craig, maybe I’ll start watching him again, but in the meantime, Conan, it’s been a good twelve or so years, but I’ve got a new late night man.

As for the other shows, I have all the eps of True Blood and Heroes moldering on my Tivo. I keep meaning to watch but I…don’t. I’ve given up on Grey’s Anatomy for the time being for lack of caring, I’ve stopped pretending I care about Supernatural, I like Bones but it always loses in my own personal ratings war against other shows I love more, and while Privileged looks cute there’s just too many other shows to watch and not enough time in which to watch them. The Mentalist looks like Psych minus James Roday and Dulé Hill, which, no thanks, and I didn’t like the original, British Life on Mars and that had John Simm, so I’ll probably be giving the U.S. version a pass.

Fall 2008 TV Season (So Far): Part 2

And now for Part 2 of my thoughts on the TV season so far:

Fringe - This is hands down my favorite new show of the season. Hell, maybe it’s my favorite new show in a while. I haven’t felt so strongly about a show since Veronica Mars got shitcanned. Fringe is a fantastic blend of action, mystery, and humor. The humor surprises me, because J.J. Abrams is no Joss Whedon, and even his relatively lighthearted fare (Felicity) generally lacks humor and honest to goodness jokes. Which isn’t a bad thing, but I do love the dark humor that permeats Whedon's work. But there’s a decent amount of levity here, which I love. J.J. has a knack for perfectly casting his series, and this is no exception. The chemistry of the main trio is fantastic. If I have one quibble, it’s that Astrid doesn’t have enough screentime and lines, but I’ll hope for better in the future. I’ll also hope that J.J. doesn’t allow Fringe to get too, too dragged down by weird mythology, the undoing of Fringe’s predecessor The X-Files and occasionally J.J.’s own shows, Alias and Lost. Still, for the foreseeable future my Tuesday nights are spoken for.

House - After one episode, I’m already sick of the new Private Eye. Like, as sick as I was of the horrible Vengeful Cop Tritter storyline from season 3. Spin him off or write him off or something, stat. And I hope they don’t delay the House/Wilson reunion too long, their relationship was one of the best parts of the show. But I really like the energy that the new team members bring to the show, and the cases have been really interesting so far. This, paired with Fringe, makes for a killer Tuesday.

90210 - The new 90210 is innocuous fun. Like I said earlier, I’m not crazy over vintage 90210 purity, so I don’t have a high emotional stake here. I will say it’s been nice seeing Brenda and Kelly back again, even with the utterly non-surprise reveal of Dylan as Kelly’s babydaddy. As for the fresh crop of Hills kids, like I said, they’re innocuous but fun. The new Brenda smiles. A lot. She’s actually the weak link of the show, the other characters seem marginally more engaging. Ultimately, the show is escapist fun but completely disposable.

Hole in the Wall - I tuned into this steaming pile of dreck thinking it might be wacky fun à la Wipeout. I won’t make that mistake twice.

Greek - This show remains cute and enjoyable, but what I most need to comment on is the brilliant use of euphemisms to sneak some really randy stuff past standards and practices. It’s amazing, and deserves applause, because that is some subtle, tricky, fabulous work.

America’s Next Top Model - Against all odds, this is the most likeable crop of models I’ve seen on this show. As much as I love catfighting drama, I was getting sick of watching horrible, horrible girls (Yaya, Dominique, Lisa) make it pretty far, while my favorites got booted fairly early (Heather, Sarah, Marvita) in every cycle. This cycle, I hated ShaRaun’s homophobic, entitled ass right off, so I pegged her as making the F2 because that’s usually how it goes, but to my delight she was booted off first. Right now I’m rooting for Sheena, Elina, McKey, and Analeigh, but at the moment there’s no one I’d loathe to see win it. I was also surprised by how well the Isis storyline was treated – I didn’t expect sensitive and realistic treatment of a transgendered person to come from ANTM of all places – and I was sad to see her go last week. (And she still looked more feminine than last season’s Dominique. Man, I still hate that scary, crazy woman.)

Ugly Betty - Well, I do like being right about neither Henry nor Gio being chosen for Betty’s Summer Vacation. That said, I don’t think the premier episode was the sharpest of the series. While Wilhelmina’s new regime at Mode was funny, I missed the old chemistry of Daniel, Alexis, Wilhelmina, Betty, Marc, and Amanda all under one roof. But I did love the new look of the show, now that it’s being filmed in New York City instead of a Los Angeles sound stage. And Lindsay Lohan’s brief appearance was nice and understated, two words we haven’t been able to associate with LiLo in a while. Here’s hoping the next few episodes pick up the pace.

The Office – Sadly, I think this show gets incrementally less funny each year. It doesn’t slip much, but it definitely does slip. Of course, the show was out and out hilarious in season 1, so even in a diluted fifth season, it’s still funnier than most things on television. And the new HR rep – a.k.a. the female Michael – brings a great new energy to the cast.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - This one’s been a victim of the Monday/Tuesday pileup for me. I just caught up on Hulu, and it looks like I may not be the only one slacking on my watching. The nets really need to spread the scripted stuff out throughout the week a bit better. It just doesn’t stand a chance against a pileup of Chuck (which I don’t watch but would if I had more time), Gossip Girl, Big Bang Theory/How I Met Your Mother. Oh, and Dancing With the Stars, which remains bafflingly popular. I wonder if it wouldn’t do better at 10pm with Prison Break (which I watched obsessively for season 1 and checked out of three eps into season 2) as a lead-in and with only Boston Legal as its real competition. In a way, I wonder if the ratings aren’t hampered by the show’s availability online. When I’m facing a Tivo Showdown, I usually side with the show that will be take longer to be posted online, and Hulu usually beats cw.com and cbs.com so I end up Tivoing Gossip Girl, watching HIMYM on a small TV in another room (because I am not tech savvy enough to figure out how to tape one thing and watch another on the Tivo TV), and Huluing T:SCC when I get a chance. At any rate, I’m hoping this show beats the odds and sticks around for a while, because this season has already given us Shirley Manson as a urinal, okay? Imagine what else it has up its titanium sleeves.

Part 3 later this week!

http://fleetstreetese.blogspot.com

http://fleetstreetese.blogspot.com

Fall 2008 TV Season (So Far): Part 1

I’m so happy that the new TV season is here. I’d be happier if there wasn’t such a pileup of shows I like on Mondays and Tuesdays, but between encore airings, Hulu.com, iTunes, OnDemand, and website airings, I can usually catch up on whatever I’ve missed. Here’s the first part of my thoughts on the TV season so far.

Entourage - Anyone who says Entourage is no longer culturally relevant was not sitting where I was a few weeks ago at the movies, in front of two guys having the same conversation about Entourage that my friends and I had about Sex and the City back in high school. To whit: which Entourage guy do you most resemble? The one on the right said, “You’re so Turtle.” “I really am,” his friend agreed. “And you’re Drama.” “What? No way, I’m Ari, all the way!” (If they had asked me – and they didn’t – I would have said they were both reminiscent of that annoying ex-con childhood friend, Dom, who alas I hear they’re bringing back this season.) As usual, Entourage is strongest when Vince is not the focus, and as such, the third episode, “The All Out Fall Out”, delivered some of the high(-low) points of the season with scatological humor and male strippers in an Ari/Lloyde storyline that had me in stitches. I think this season has been as strong as any of the past seasons. It won’t win over new fans, but it should keep the old ones happy.

One Tree Hill - Having watched a large number of teen shows in my time, one convention that usually holds steady is that one TV season equals roughly one academic year, a format that often remains even after the characters graduate high school. This is just logistics, usually, since most seasons run during the academic year (September – May/June) and audiences seem to like the Halloween episodes to fall around Halloween, Christmas episodes to fall around Christmas, etc. But One Tree Hill broke the mold when it split senior year over seasons 3 and 4 to try, I assume, and hang on to the tried and true high school formula for a while longer, and the result was that I spent all of season 4 unable to remember which events had happened in the current season and which had happened a year earlier. Not that it’s a big deal, of course, but it meant that a lot of storylines ran together in my head. Well, OTH fast-forwarded ahead four years for season 5, which certainly made it distinctive in my mind, but here were are again in season 6, picking up right after season 5, and I’m back to runny story lines. Ah well. There’s definitely a lot of good in this season. Lucas and Peyton are finally together, and while I’m a Brooke/Lucas girl myself, but Lucas and Peyton are one of those inevitable couples set up in the pilot, so it’s good to finally get past some of the keep-them-apart machinations. For now, anyway. I’m bummed they shipped Mouth and Millicent away and I’d prefer a happier storyline for Brooke, but I’m glad Skills is getting more screentime. I’m kind of over the Psycho Nanny Carrie storyline, it’s just little too much crazy for me, and Dan can die now too, please. I do have to hand it to OTH, though, normally I hate precious TV kids, but Jamie’s actually pretty cool. The kid is a good actor, cute but not twee. The third episode, “Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.”, actually made me cry in the way that only OTH can manage these days, it’s the only show where I really care about the characters. I feel like the show is winding down – I’d be surprised if this wasn’t the last season (and that’s not even assuming the CW itself is going down in flames, which it may well be...) – and so far it’s been a solid season, so if this has to be the last hurrah, it will at least end on a high note.

Gossip Girl - After wading through exhaustive (and exhausting) coverage of Gossip Girl all summer on blogs like Gawker and Defamer, and seeing a gajillion candid pap shots of the actors on and off set, I thought nothing from the new season would still feel fresh once it finally aired. But I underestimated Blair Waldorf, a mistake that has been the downfall of many, I assume. Leighton Meester is a little firecracker who ignites any scene she’s in, and through all the dopey Dan/Serena goo, she, along with Ed Westwick’s slimy/irresistible Chuck Bass, keeps the show worth watching. Honestly, I feel like season 2 is exactly the same quality as season 1 – no better, but more importantly, no worse. It seems to have sidestepped the sophomore slump, but it’s doing nothing to win over the naysayers. Here’s hoping the ratings can finally catch up with the buzz this go-round.

How I Met Your Mother - The premier ep was funny, but I have a few quibbles. One – what is up with Jason Segal’s hair? That shit is upsetting. Two – I hope the Robin/Barney storyline doesn’t lead to a defanged Barney. I like him just the way he is. Three – I need to see Sarah Chalke interact with the rest of the cast a bit more to assuage my fears of her upsetting the HIMYM feng shui. HIMYM is awesome because of the chemistry between Ted, Robin, Barney, Lily, and Marshall, and it’s imperative that the newbie meshes with the rest of the family. But I have total faith in Sarah Chalke and her meshyness, considering how much ass she kicked (kicks?) on Scrubs.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2 of the round-up!

Live Blogging the Emmys 2008

In an experiment that may crash and burn due to a touchy internet connection and limited attention span on the part of, well, me, I'm going to try live blogging the Emmys. So if you're on the West Coast, beware of spoilers. And if you're reading this post on a reader/aggregator/RSS feed like Google, you'll probably need to head over to the site itself to see the rest of the updates as I'll be updating this post.

Unfortunately, this means my other posts on Lakeview Terrace, Ghost Town, and the fall TV season so far will have to wait until later this week, since I was going to work on them while watching the Emmys, because I'm not the kind of person who can devote full attention to an awards show. So yeah, here goes!

8:02 - Cute opening montage, but not super inspired or anything.

8:04 - Why is Heidi Klum in a suit? A really ugly suit? And why are Ryan Seacrest and Jeff Probst following Oprah on a major primetime awards show? This is really painful to watch.

8:08 - Really, really painful.

8:11 - Jeremy Piven (Entourage) for Best Supporting Actor/Comedy! Fantastic! Neil Patrick Harris deserved it as much (if not more), but I love JPiv.

8:14 - Commercial break. Just got an invite to watch a rental of The Scorpion King 2. Thank god I had a legitimate excuse to decline. Also, I just checked my Tivo in the other room, and once again it was recording the wrong channel. The channel changing is so hit or miss on that thing.

8:20 - Jean Smart (Samantha Who?) for Best Supporting Actress/Comedy. Vanessa Williams was ROBBED. I'm just glad no one from that godawful dreck Two and a Half Men has won so far. Jean Smart's a good actress at least. What a classy speech. I don't watch Samantha Who? though I probably should. But when it comes down to it, there are more shows worthy of my attention than there is time in the week.

8:21 - Oh, so we're doing commercials after every award now? Lame, ABC.

8:27 - The Housewives look lovely. I covet Marcia's dress. Eva's dress is a little weird, though. It looks like a bunch of shiny arrows pointing to her ladygarden.

8:29 - Zeljko Ivanek (Damages) for Supporting Actor/Drama. Okay. Zero thoughts on this one. I don't watch most of those shows nominated. At least it wasn't Shatner.

8:32 - Ricky Gervais! Love that man. These montages get worse and more irrelevant each year. Cut out some of these stupid montages and give the time to the winners for speeches that don't get cut off by music so quickly. Oh wait, we're back to Ricky Gervais! And Steve Carrell! This is awesome.

8:35 - Louis Horvits (2008 Oscars) for Directing for a Variety. Welp, that's nice and incestuous. I really am waiting for someone to create a primetime televised awards show for awards shows. Then, someone can create a competing awards show for awards shows, which will lead to an awards show for awards shows for awards shows... (Also, Lonny Price was robbed. Not that I saw the show he was nominated for - it's been mouldering on my Tivo for months now, but I saw him play the lead in A Class Act on Broadway a few years ago and he was awesome.)

8:43 - Conan! Making a Katherine Heigle joke!

8:44 - Dianne Weist (In Treatment) for Supporting Actress in a Drama. Meh. I wanted Sandra Oh or Chandra Wilson.

8:45 - Hayden Panettiere (19) and Jennifer Love Hewitt (29) look like they're the same age. Is that good for JLove or bad for Hayden?

8:46 - Many people from The Colbert Report for Outstanding Writing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Program. Letterman had the best intro, followed by Colbert. SNL's was kind of lame.

9:03 - Josh Groban doing a montage of theme songs. Seriously painful.

9:06 - Laura Linney (John Adams) for Lead Actress in a Mini/Movie.

9:14 - I am so over these blasts from the past and lame skits. How about celebrating what happened this year? I know they're probably light on material after the strike earlier this year, but seriously.

9:17 - The Daily Show for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy. Not exactly an upset.

9:19 - Heidi Klum: "And from The Bones, David Boreanaz!"

9:20 - Tim Conway (30 Rock) for Guest Actor in Comedy Series and Kathryn Joosten (Desperate Housewives) for Guest Actress in Comedy Series. Woo, Mrs. McCluskey!

9:23 - Barry Sonnenfeld (Pushing Daisies - Pie-lette) for Outstanding Directing for Comedy Series! Woo, Pushing Daisies!

9:24 - Tina Fey (30 Rock) for Outstanding Writer for Comedy Series. I am so torn. On the one hand, a woman winning a writing award! Yay! On the other hand, I want anything Pushing Daisies to win because that show needs love. On the other, other hand (am I now Vishnu?), Fey said "Never go with a hippie to a second location," which, hee. Okay, I'll put this in the personal win column.

9:35 - Christina Applegate looks ravishing. Her dress is beautiful, and she looks like she's glowing - just gorgeous.

9:36 - Recount for Outstanding Made for TV Movie! I haven't seen it yet, but man, it was written by Danny Strong, aka Jonathan from Buffy! That is so made of win. I wish he was doing the speech. Or at least on stage. Bah.

9:43 - Oh god, Laurence Fishburne is slumming it on CSI? That's so upsetting. He is too good an actor to be on a procedural that is way beyond long in the tooth and totally irrelevant. Anyway, Tom Wilkinson (John Adams) for Supporting Actor in a Mini/Movie.

9:45 - Can we write in Stewart/Colbert for President/Veep in November?

9:47 - Jay Roach (Recount) for Outstanding Directing for Mini, Movie, or Dramatic Special.

9:48 - Kirk Ellis (John Adams) for Outstanding Writing for Mini, Movie, or Dramatic Special. Man, I was pulling for Danny Strong. Oh my god, they flat out cut off Ellis' speech by going to commercial. Because god forbid we take any time away from remembering TV shows from 30 years ago in favor of letting a current winner thank people and say some pertinent things about the current political climate. Also, wow, that was a very political five minutes on the Emmys.

9:55 - I love Sandra Oh. I love Sandra Oh's dress. Dame Eileen Atkins (Cranford (Masterpiece)) for Supporting Actress in Mini/Movie. At least it wasn't Audra McDonald. She already has enough awards.

9:56 - Kathy Griffin's dress is pretty, but her hair is scary. It's like Farah Fawcett meets Dolly Parton meets split and stringy ends. Oy. No, wait, now that I've seen the full dress I don't love it, either. The band of tulle around the middle is odd, though I still like the brocade material and bodice. Oh, hey, crowdshot of Adrian Grenier! That reminds me, I should be watching Entourage right now. Thank god HBO repeats.

9:29 - The Amazing Race for Outstanding Reality Competition. I would have preferred ProjRun, but last season was weak (the opposite of fierce), so I can understand not giving it to them. TAR is yet another show I don't watch but know I probably should.

10:01 - I like Sally Fields' earrings. John Adams for Outstanding Miniseries. Eh. Tin Man was robbed, that movie was fantastic. The Andromeda Strain was godawful, how was it even nommed? Tom Hanks' hair has not yet recovered from The Da Vinci Code, I see.

10:05 - Congrats, ABC, you fooled me - I just Googled "National Stay At Home Week" to see whether it was real or whether you'd invented it. (It was the latter, natch.)

10:07 - Heidi Klum does comedy! In a pretty blue dress!

10:09 - Don Rickles (Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project) for Outstanding Individual Performance In A Variety Or Music Program. I expected more from Neil Patrick Harris' presentation. He was muted, totally didn't bring it like he usually does. For shame, NPH. [ETA: Wait, nevermind, apparently their bit was cut out because they were running behind thanks to the unfunny ramblings of Howie Mandel and the other reality show travesties.]

10:13 - Kate Walsh looks fantastic! Glynn Turman (In Treatment) for Guest Actor in a Drama Series and Cynthia Nixon (Law and Order: SVU) for Guest Actress in a Drama Series. Go Cynthia! That was a fantastic episode.

10:14 - Greg Yaitanes (House - House's Head) for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. Nice! That was an amazing episode and very well-directed. That's a win I can wholly stand behind.

10:16 - Matthew Weiner (Mad Men - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes) Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Yup, yet another show I probably should but don't watch. I would have liked to see Battlestar Galactica get some love here.

10:18 - Gotta admit, I kinda love this Verizon commercial.

10:23 - Paul Giamatti (John Adams) for Outstanding Lead Actor in Mini/Movie.

10:25 - Eek, what is Candice Bergen wearing? She looks so frumpy! Rage, rage against the dying of the light, Candice! You're still a saucy lady who doesn't need to resort to frumpy jackets. Sad. Alec Baldwin (30 Rock) for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Sigh. I really, really, really wanted Lee Pace to win. At least he was nominated though. Shows I love are rarely even nominated. (See also: Buffy, Angel, Alias, Veronica Mars, etc)

10:28 - Glenn Close (Damages) for Lead Actress in a Drama Series. I wish they'd nominate fewer from the crime/procedural genre in these categories. Glenn said that this proves that older female actresses are "high entertainment and can carry a show" to which I say - hear hear!

10:33 - Erm, nice to see they went for "creepy and prescient" when selecting the clips for this year's In Memoriam segment.

10:38 - Ooh, Kiefer looks dashing. Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) for Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Okay, obviously Hugh Laurie was robbed, but I'll consider this a way to make up for not giving Malcolm in the Middle enough Emmy love back in the day. Why is Bryan bald and mustachioed?

10:40 - Craig Ferguson: ...and I just want you to know that I respect you.
Brook Shields: Is that your hand on my ass?
Craig Ferguson: Yes, and it's respecting you.

10:41 - Tina Fey (30 Rock) for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. I would have preferred Mary-Louis Parker for Weeds, personally.

10:43 - Outstanding Host For A Reality Or Reality Competition Program. I can barely bring myself to acknowledge this category, I don't think I can live in a world where the words "Ryan Seacrest" and "Emmy Nominee" are paired together. Even the way they're announcing it is a travesty. And Jimmy Kimmel presenting is a travesty. And now they're going to commercial before actually presenting the award which is a trav...wait for it...esty.

10:46 - You know, I hated the trailer for Body of Lies all three times I saw it in theatres this summer, but the TV promos actually make it look appealing. Hm.

10:50 - Jeff Probst for Outstanding Host For A Reality Or Reality Competition Program. Ah well, at least they gave it to the guy who started it all.

10:52 – Wow, Betty White looks great! Mary Tyler Moore, not so much – too skinny!

10:53 - 30 Rock for Best Comedy Series. Again, at least it wasn't Two and a Half Men, but I was pulling for Entourage.

10:55 - Tina Fey: "We are all grateful to have jobs in this turkeyburger economy."

10:57 - Mad Men for Outstanding Drama Series. Boo, Lost and House both had stellar seasons.

Welp, there you have it! You can see a complete list of nominees and winners here. Maybe next year a show I love will actually win something. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Not Pushing "Daisies"

Pushing Daisies Season 1 is out on DVD today, which means I can finally clear the episodes I’ve been hoarding for almost a year on my Tivo. But it also reminds me of my growing concern – is ABC doing enough to push Pushing Daisies?

I could be wrong, but I don’t think a single episode has aired in 2008. I know the strike jacked everything up, but ABC missed a prime opportunity to hook in new viewers (and remind old viewers of the show’s existence) by running some repeats over the summer. In fact, they could have started airing episodes every Wednesday starting on July 30th and then run right into the October 1st premier.

And the Season 1 DVD comes out today, two weeks (and one day) before Season 2 starts. That doesn’t give the Netflixers a lot of time to catch up if they wanted to see Season 1 before giving Season 2 a try. There’s no reason they couldn’t have pushed to get the DVDs out a little earlier to help build buzz for the series.

Even the promos I’ve seen have been weak. The few I’ve seen have been very ambiguous to the show’s plot, it’s just cutesy glamour shots and pull-quotes. Hell, they could have even thrown the Season 1 eps up for free on OnDemand or something.

(And by the way, everything I’ve said could be applied to Dirty Sexy Money as well, but while I love DSM, I’ll survive if it doesn’t, whereas a Daisies cancellation would truly gut me.)

Maybe I’m just nervous because I’ve had two other wonderful Bryan Fuller shows snatched away from me in their prime (Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me) so I’m a little gun shy, but man, I need Pushing Daisies to stick around. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this attached to a show – since Veronica Mars, Alias, Angel, and Buffy went off the air. (I’ve loved other shows since, but not in a really insanely connected way.) When Season 1 was airing last fall, I was going through a stressful period with tough school demands and treacherous interpersonal relationships and shit, and instead of immediately watching Pushing Daisies as it aired, I’d save each episode for the inevitable day each week when everything had gone wrong and I felt like crap. Then, I’d watch Daisies, and it was like shooting up with a syringe full of sunshine and kittens, I swear to god. You can’t help but smile watching the show. And now I’m in an even worse place trying to find my way in a post-grad world and being unable still to land permanent employment in this crappy media-killing recession, and I need that one-hour dose of happiness each week.

On the up side, I also have Fringe, which I’m already super attached to. But, of course I am, it’s a J.J. show. I love J.J. Even Fringe has me nervous though. Fox has a habit of killing off shows I love (see: Firefly, Wonderfalls, Dark Angel, Reunion, Undeclared, Boston Public). But supposedly this is a new regime, and Joss Whedon is willing to give them a second chance with Dollhouse after they slaughtered Firefly, so I’m tentatively hopeful.

Still, ABC doesn’t seem too trigger happy compared to other networks, so I hope they’ll give the audience a chance to find (and re-find) Pushing Daisies. I just wish they were doing more to light the way.

90210 2.0

I was going through some old boxes over the holiday weekend when I unearthed my grade school diaries. They’re mostly filled with nonsense – not unlike my later diaries, though even more incoherent than usual – but I did find a few gems. One was my declaration, at age seven, of eternal love for Kirk Cameron. Believe me, I wish my first celeb crush had been a little edgier, too. A New Kid on the Block or, well, anything besides Mike Seaver. The other entry of note was this one:

If you can’t read my atrocious handwriting (which, if I’m being honest, has not improved much since then), it reads:
5-20-92
Ciao! (Pronounced Chow, Italian) Don’t you think Italian sounds much better?! [Ed. Note – one page earlier I was mangling French and proclaiming its superiority, so clearly I was a fickle little aspiring omniglot.] Most shows nowadays are focused on teens but enjoyed mostly by the younger (my) generation. And I am 10. But I’d say the most popular show this (and last) year is Beverly Hills, 90210. It is about 8 teens growing up. For now I must depart.

Needless to say, I was an aspiring pop culture commentator even then. But it’s funny that here we are, sixteen years later, and 90210 is again poised to become a popular show. And once again I’m not in the generation that the show is aimed at. For the first one I was a generation behind and for the remake I’m a generation ahead. This new situation should bother me, but I anticipated the premiers of Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill with unrestrained glee last night, so clearly I have little shame in my love of teen shows. (At least with the One Tree Hill fast forward they’re now closer to my age.)

Unlike a lot of my friends, I don’t fear for the violation of the sacred place 90210 holds in pop culture history. Despite evidence to the contrary scrawled inside a neon pink diary sixteen years ago, the show didn’t shape a lot of my youth. I was a little young for the craze, it was more firmly rooted in the generation slightly ahead of mine. Ditto New Kids on the Block. I had NKOTB and 90210 lunchboxes and sleeping bags and dolls and all, but my love for them was more abstract, probably the way kids today like Bratz for the marketing more than the media. The show that shaped my teen years was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It premiered in my freshman year of high school and is definitely a show I grew up with and a show that informed most of my later media tastes. Buffy, Dawson’s Creek, Felicity, those shows from the golden era of the WB are the shows from my youth that I hold dear. So as excited as I am for the new 90210, my excitement is more in hoping it can replace the trashyfab SoCal teen melodrama hole that the cancellation of The O.C. left in my heart than any nostalgia for the original, so I won’t be particularly ruffled if they tip that sacred cow. Now, if they revamp Buffy (no pun intended - well, okay, maybe a little intended) and cock it up, then I’ll be pissed.

It will be interesting to see whether the new 90210 makes as big an impact on the current generation of younguns as it did the generation ahead of me. I’d guess no. At the time, Old School 90210 was one of the few shows aimed at teens. Now, for every cancelled O.C. there’s a Gossip Girl and 90210 to take its place. Teen TV is way more disposable nowadays. But I’ll watch regardless, and hope that someone gets tossed into a pool by Act 2. Damn, I miss The O.C.

Television à la carte

Apparently, Entertainment Weekly is teaming up with Tivo to allow EW editors to pick the recording lists for lazy/trusting Tivo users. Gawker draws an apt comparison to Wall-E in this ultimate model of a convenience culture potentially gone awry. But I feel like there are probably two kinds of Tivo users, the ones (like me) who have it because they're TV obsessed and don't want to miss a single episode of anything. (Unless, also like me, their Tivo has been unreliable in channel changing for the past few months, only getting it right about 50% of the time despite hours spent on tech support calls.) Then there are the ones who enjoy TV but are very casual viewers who want to be able to, say, catch up with a backlog of three or four Desperate Housewives every couple of lazy Sundays. I assume this service is aimed more for them than the real fanatics. While I do fear a grim Wall-E future, in this case I think this service is a chance to get more eyeballs on overlooked shows, maybe some eyeballs that are normally too busy to seek out great, unappreciated series.

Because another thing I'm worried about is this upcoming TV season. It starts next week, you know. Believe it or not, September is almost here. Yet I'm oddly not that excited for the TV premiers. Which is weird because TV is my thing, my favorite pop culture medium, and if I'm this unexcited, how are the casual viewers feeling?

Last fall, I was all about Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, and Heroes. But by January, they were all out of episodes and the strike was raging. Now, I'm dying for the PD premier, and thankfully I had the foresight to keep eight episodes on my Tivo to watch over the summer. But I can't for the life of me remember what's going on over at DSM, and in fact I forgot its existence entirely until I saw someone mention it elsewhere today, despite it being a top priority show less than a year ago. And not even the presence of Veronica Mars and Julian Sark made me care about Heroes season 2 so I'm not exactly jazzed about season 3. I'm just really afraid that the strike killed the momentum of new shows like PD and DSM and sucked my limited interest in borderline shows like Heroes. I'm not even sure what among the new crop of shows is worth checking out aside from Fringe and Dollhouse. Is Eleventh Hour gonna be any good? Is The Mentalist more than a rip-off of Psych? Normally I'd be all over this stuff. Hell, normally I'd have hunted down and downloaded the Fringe pilot like I did the Lost pilot months before it hit the airwaves. By now, I'd have my Tivo season passes set, I'd have a handwritten schedule of what airs when and what conflicts with what, etc. But I'm so out of practice this year since I haven't had more than two or three shows to follow simultaneously in almost nine months. At least I have a few more days to get into the swing of things.

Speaking of the Fringe pilot, Fox is being kind of smart for once and streaming the Fringe and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles premiers online for students simultaneous to the regular airing. Not sure how successful this will be since I'm not sure many college students make the time / have the access to televisions to make TV a regular part of their life. When I was on the newspaper staff, I did a few articles on television, including one on Nielsen ratings and one on marketing the CW, and I had a hell of a time finding students who gave any kind of damn about television. But my school also had a high nerd quotient (when Adderall is the campus drug of choice, you know you're in trouble) so take that as you will. More laid back student bodies might find more time to follow shows other than Gossip Girl. Still, Fox gets major points for effort. Now I just wish they'd add Dollhouse to that list.

If you're as addled as I am with regards to what's premiering when, AICN has a pretty good guide to premier dates, and The Futon Critic has a good grid layout of the schedule so far. Hopefully we'll be able to jump right in next week and forget all about the strike and the long dry spell we've been experiencing. Seriously, though, what the hell is happening on Dirty Sexy Money?