Everybody Loves Saturday Night

A quick two weeks of TV.

Week of 2/10:

Brothers & Sisters:  Kevin and Scotty talking in the car. Oh my, I just got the romance shivers.

Terminator:  Best episode yet! Loved it. And Summer Glau rocking the fingerless gloves.

Jericho: Esai Morales is a) hot and b) acting his ass off.

Eli Stone: Fun music, and not just the George Michael, the random background pop songs have been pretty good as well.  Lots of great actors in this (Victor Garber, the chief's wife from Grey's, Dr. Abbott from Everwood, the mom from Jericho).   And hello Eli Stone?  Totally yummalicious.

Lost:  This season has been sooooo good.  The flash forwards are really working for me.  That said, felt like a cheap (and unnecessary) trick disguising Ben's voice at the end.  They should have just left it as is and let us wonder until the reveal. Lame.

Week of 2/19:

Brothers & Sisters:  Eh, kinda boring this week.  Although lovely OLD sepia pictures of Patricia Wettig.

Terminator: Didn't like this episode as much as last week's.  Too much time in the Brian Austin Green's "past" (which is actually in the future) and they gave Dean Winters lame dialogue.

Jericho: I just realized on the plane to Vegas that Jake's brother on Jericho is one of the hockey players in Miracle (the last guy to get cut before the Olympics, "Ralph").  Miracle is such a great movie.

Eli Stone:  Admittedly the legal "situations" on this show are a bit much, but the reason I like it is emotionally it feels sincere.  The scenes between Eli and Taylor were great.  This show has a similar feel to Pushing Daisies for me -- not the retro and not the look, but emotionally so.

Lost:  SOOOOOOOO Good.  HOLY SHIT!!!  Some of the reveals tonight?  Wowza.  Lies, and lies, and...kidnapping?  Sorta?   Matthew Fox is totally workin it this season.

Hello, 2008. Goodbye to TV?

The strike is really too depressing to talk much about.  Let's just say: a) the writers are completely in the right, I mean COME ON, they make 7 cents off a DVD and NOTHING off Internet?  and b) all joy is gone until the big corps get off their butts and realize the # of people who will actually watch reality TV every stupid night is far smaller than the amount who appreciates well-written TV.  Right?  Fuck, I hope so.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles started last night / continues tonight.  I loved it.  A little backstory / some good fights.  Everyone is beaten down and miserable and barely keeping it together.  Good performances by the three leads.  I'm looking forward to more, although if you read the article in the latest EW, I do have concerns given the actors all seem a bit lost without the writers there during the majority of the filming (9 eps written out of 13 pre-strike, but the writers not around to discuss even what was already written).

And as for a mid-season (but potentially end-of-season) review of everything else I'm watching:

Brothers & Sisters. I still enjoy the repartee, and still enjoy watching Justin and Kevin... but I think it's pretty lame that EVERY marriage has to wind up with infidelity on this show. Same old, same old. Watch out, Calista & Rob, you're next!

Heroes.  First half of season sucked ass. Last four eps were fairly awesome, at least up to season 1 standards.  Not thrilled to be getting sucked back in...just in time for the strike.  But this is definitely one of the shows I enjoy more on DVD (as with LOST).

K-Ville.  Predictable and overly melodramatic. But enjoy the two leads and their buddy/partner chemistry.

Bones.  MY FAVORITE SHOW OF THIS SEASON (even over #2 FNL knocked out of the top spot and #s 3 Pushing Daisies/Office tie and #4 Life) Loving it. Loved every minute of this season. So sad not to be seeing new episodes right now.

Reaper.  Up and down but for the most part I do enjoy each episode even when afterward I think "What was the point of that / or they forgot about this / or they dropped the ball on that".  None of it has lived up to the Kevin Smith-directed premiere for me. Ep 3 was close but all else has been mediocre in comparison. Still laugh at it though, so find it worth watching.

Gossip Girl.  At first I was only watching this on iTunes but since it's one of the few with new eps left, I've moved to watching it in real time.  A guilty pleasure, indeed.  It's like The OC but without the annoying attempt at seeing real life next to the rich kids.  Even Dan and Jennie are not Ryan Atwood poor.  There are no well-meaning, morally upstanding (despite being rich) parents (Sandy Cohen, I'm talking to you). It's all boys, bitches and bling. What's not to like.

Pushing Daisies.  My #1 new show of the season.  The sweetness and charm, and the retro rich colors of the filming.  So much to love.  (So much to miss.)

Life.  My #2 new show of the season.  Love the lead, love the partner chemistry with both his old & new partners, love the fight to lead a zen life vs. the fight to get revenge. Love the creepiness of the bad cops and the bad non-cop dudes. Love it all.

The Office.  Continued to be brilliant. Funny and crass and yet sweet and kind, all at the same time.  Nobody does that better.

30 Rock.  As funny as the Office with a little less sweetness (there really is no situation comparable to Pam/Jim on this show, in my opinion).  Comedic actors doing the type of brilliant work they would never get recognized for on the big screen.

Grey's.  Sucks.  Contrived. Ridiculous. Trying way too fucking hard.

Friday Night Lights.  (STILL HAS AT LEAST ONE OR TWO NEW EPS LEFT) Still love some of it.  Still has these just blindingly beautiful moments of true feelings / true situations / bitingly real scenarios.  At the same time, so much of it has been very contrived this year (and not just the murder mystery).  Some of the really good bits are starting to be overshadowed by the ridiculous bits.  Peter Berg, would you please step back in and get control of these writers (when the strike ends, I guess) as almost none of the episodes have held a candle to last year's.  It's like they actually didn't know which parts made them a success and have gone off in the wrong direction. (And p.s. let's have dinner, you and me.)

NUMB3RS.  Still not what it once was. But last few episodes have had some nice tension and some nice scary-without-a-zillion-shoot-em-ups bits.

I think that's all I've been watching in real time.  Isn't it?  Man, can't even remember, now that most shows have gone dark.  Still catching up with How I Met Your Mother on iTunes, I'm somewhere in the second season. 

And looking forward to the beginning of Lost and Jericho, although I don't think there's a full season written of either one, is there?  Didn't watch last season of The Wire because the schoolroom focus was just too painful to watch. Will probably try to watch it on DVD at some point so going to save the current season for then. I do love me some James McNulty though.

Brothers&Sisters: Even more dramatic than last season...

I don't know what it is about Greg Berlanti that he can make me love a very female-full show where I really do not at all like more than half of the actresses (as you may remember).  The man's a magician.

While in some ways this show is sooo unrealistic and many of the situations seem manufactured (versus say Friday Night Lights where until the horrors of last week, the scenarios all felt very real), the acting and the emotions in it are so real they completely make up for the stilted scenarios. 

It's hard to believe a show about this big of a family with this many different problems and this "representative" in a way few families actually are (a gay brother, a republican sister, a dead dad, a half sister, a family business, a (secretly gay?) uncle, a politician soon-to-be inlaw, a soldier brother, etc., etc., etc.) can still be so emotionally engaging.

I think that's really what it does best.  The brother/sister/mother fights, even when they happen for absurd reasons, are just fraught with real emotion.  Everyone in this family is so brutally honest with each other...you know I'm a fan of the honest, but sometimes it's almost cringe-worthy to watch HOW honest and how much comes pouring out.

This show also makes better use of the cellphone gossip family tree than any other show in history.  This week's scene with Kevin and Sarah sitting next to each other getting calls from Kitty and Nora?  Perfectly executed.

I'm loving:  Justin's obstinancy, and how real was that last scene, crumpled in pain on the bed.  Rob Lowe giving it to the Rush Limbaugh doppelganger.  The dude who formerly played Summer's dad on the OC = perfect as an elderly gay man.  Who could've known?

I'm not loving:  Pastor boy goes to Malaysia, Joe wants a divorce, and looks like Julia may take off for her parents house?  Um hello are all the auxiliary players leaving? 

Of course, if you don't want to see crying on TV shows, you would need to stay far, far away from this one.

Bros & Sis: Ick ick ick.

OK so I could deal with the whole "Joe kissed me" and that being an issue and all...until the very end when they show the scene that no one else saw and we see she's a big fat lying bitch.  I mean, he kissed her, but he was certainly the one upset about the situation not her.

So is she just out to destroy the Walkers b/c she didn't get to be part of a family?  (those of us who ARE part of families, we know that's not all it's cracked up to be, yo) Why bother lying to her mom and yelling "just because you're a slut doesn't mean I'm one" when in fact, hello, we find out she is? 

I love "Amy Abbott" and was really thinking she was doing a good job here -- now I'm sad that they just brought her on this show to be a lying ho-bag.  Also, back in the real world, I hear she has been spotted making out with her costar "Justin" (yum) so does that mean she broke up with "Bright" and he's now back on the market?  Because "Bright Abbott" is the one boy who could make me forget about "Tim Riggins"...

Brothers & Sisters: A whole lotta crazy going on.

Margot Kidder is just a RIOT on this show.  Hard to wrap my mind around the fact that she's that old now, but she is perfect as the fliighty nut-so best old lady friend. Other than that, I still hate almost all the female leads. But I am LOVING the newly formed brother sister combination between Justin and Rebecca ("Amy Abbott").  Loved tonight's back and forth between Kevin and Chad, even if that's now at an end (Jason Lewis' arc is now finished, presumably?). And even though it felt manipulative at moments, I did like all the songs they used as backdrop this week. All in, a good episode.

Brothers & Sisters: And I'm hooked.

Riddle me this, batgirls. I HATE Calista Flockhart. I HATE Sally Fields. I HATE Rachel Griffiths. I HATE Patricia Wettig. and I HATE the "Arvin Sloan" dude (Ron Rifkin). Yet... I am loving this show. Say wha?!?

I LOVE the gay brother. LOVE the druggie brother. Love the sterile brother. Love the hippie-esque brother-in-law. And kinda secretly still love Rob Lowe, although I'd never admit it in a public forum like a weblog, my god, have some pride, girl! Hmmm, is it all about the boys for me? (Uh, doh!)

Watched an episode of this at Jackie's the other weekend. Thought "Hmmm, maybe." Got home. Spent two days watching all the episodes on ABC.com (which frankly doesn't work quite as well as NBC.com but that's a story for a different post). Am completely caught up, including last night's fresh episode with "Amy Abbott of Everwood" joining the cast (woot!).

Positives:

• Cute (HOT) messy boys who are all entangled in shit they shouldn't be entangled in and maybe only one of whom can really handle an actual relationship.
  
• Family mishaps/fights/dinners/confidences/gossip (the use of the family gossip phone tree on this show is classic) that all ring very true.
  
• Produced by Greg Berlanti of Everwood. hello I loved me some Everwood. I would have watched this just b/c of him had I known.

Negatives:

• Hate MANY of the actors (see above).
  
• Hate the bullshit one republican in a stalwartly democratic family bullshit storyline. Come on. it's more likely to happen the other way around in the reality I've known.
  
• Hate the weak ass connections to politics and all the "we are sooo relevant, America" storylines. We talk about Bush! We have a character who went to Iraq/Afghanistan! We are YOU, America!
  
• Hate that actors with democratic lives (hello Calista "I'm a single adoptive mother who dates a tired old actor and doesn't fit the nuclear definition of 'family' " Flockhart and Rob "I used to make sex tapes with underage girls but everyone pretends not to remember that" Lowe) are trying to play hard-ass republicans. I just don't really believe them in those roles.

And usually I hate those "we're TV but we're pretending we're real" cultural reference moments also, but I have to admit I loved it in the episode when Calista said to Rob "I'm no Demi Moore" and his reply was "I've always had a major thing for her." Well, yes, Rob, you did. In "About Last Night" for example (what a great flick) and in "St. Elmo's Fire" as well. The Calista/Rob thing though? Have you watched them kiss? Because he, he is actually kissing, and she, she is stiff as a board with her duck lips just sticking out stiffly like oooo yuck you are kissing me. Helllooooo...

Nevertheless, I am completely entangled in all the show's plotlines and psyched that Emily Van Camp has joined the cast, and oh fucking hell, did I just start up ANOTHER TV show? It's no Friday Night Lights, but I am quite enjoying it.