Culture Kitsch

Doctor Who: “I am definitely a madman with a box!”

2010-04-17T21:30:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the much-anticipated premiere of the new season of Doctor Who! After much speculation and no small amount of hand-wringing by nervous fans, the fifth season of the “new” Who debuted in the U.S. tonight.

After three full seasons and five hour-long specials starring David Tennant as the Doctor, the much-beloved Tennant is out, as is showrunner, executive producer, and head writer Russell T. Davies and much of the behind-the-scenes team that had worked on the show since the debut of the 2005 revival. In is Steven Moffat, the man behind some really excellent episodes over the last four seasons (including the Ninth Doctor two-parter “The Empty Child” & “The Doctor Dances,” and my personal favorite, “Blink”), actors Matt Smith as the Doctor and Karen Gillan as companion Amy Pond, and a whole slew of new producers. The TARDIS has been redesigned and the title sequence revamped. (By the way, for those of us who didn’t mind the bombastic musical score from the Davies era, rest assured that composer Murray Gold is still on board, though the sound mixing seems to have improved so that now we can actually hear the dialogue over the music most of the time.) Everything old is new again, and it’s an interesting behind-the-scenes story – but does it translate into good television?

Let’s find out during “The Eleventh Hour,” written by Steven Moffat and directed by Adam Smith. As always, my comments will include spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the BBC or BBC America broadcasts, you’ve been warned.

“The Eleventh Hour” (a title, by the way, that not only fits the story, but is also a nod to the fact that Matt Smith is the eleventh actor to play the Doctor since William Hartnell first played the role in 1963) begins exactly where we left off in “The End of Time, Part 2”: the TARDIS is in bad shape, the Doctor has just regenerated, and we’re careening through the sky over London with some questionable CGI. Listen, I know it can’t all be that unbelievable bullet-time shot from the season opener of CSI, but the shot of the Doctor hanging out of the TARDIS just looks like something I made in Microsoft 3-D Moviemaker in the fifth grade. (Although I did make some pretty awesome monster movies, let me tell you.) I get why they did it – it might have worked to just cold-open on little Amelia Pond asking Santa to send her a policeman, but when the TARDIS crashes into her garden shed, we wouldn’t really understand the severity of the damage to the little blue box.

Speaking of little Amelia Pond, has there been a more delightful introduction to a companion in the last five seasons? The Doctor is soaking wet – having fallen into the TARDIS swimming pool – wearing half of a torn-up suit, climbing out of a box that crash-landed in her garden, and Amelia’s only question is, “Did you come about the crack in my wall?” She’s completely unruffled by this weirdo in ratty clothes eating fish sticks and custard (ugh) in her kitchen, and the wonderful chemistry between Matt Smith and young Caitlin Blackwood (who is actually Karen Gillan’s cousin) makes the bizarre interaction between child and Time Lord not only believable, but utterly charming, even when the Doctor is being a bit impolite.

Amelia: What’s wrong with you?
The Doctor: Wrong with me? It’s not my fault. Why can’t you give me any decent food? You’re Scottish; fry something.

Anybody who knows me can tell you that I’m not fond of children, so the fact that I’m saying this tells you how much I liked it: is there anything more darling than little Amelia Pond packing her suitcase to go off adventuring with the Doctor? Or anything more heartbreaking, because the moment the Doctor tells her he’ll be back in five minutes, you know he isn’t going to make it on time.

Then little Amelia grows up into Miss Amy Pond. Introduced with a nice camera pan up her legs, and, hey, did you know the show’s run by a straight man now? The nice thing, though, is that Amy is just as great a character as Amelia. She can stand up for herself – she went through four psychiatrists because they kept insisting the Doctor wasn’t real – and demands answers from the Doctor, rather than blindly following. I’d like it a little better if Amy’s costumes didn’t seem to always include a miniskirt, which doesn’t seem particularly practical with all the running (and listen to Donna in “The Doctor’s Daughter” when she tells it like it is: “Seriously, there’s an outrageous amount of running involved”), but still, it’s nice to have an impressionable young woman who isn’t immediately fawning over the Doctor…even if she is admiring the view when he strips down.

One thing I’ve always loved about this show is that the Doctor – the ancient, fantastic alien from a lost world, the very last of his kind – travels in a spaceship that is also a time machine, the kind of technology we’ve only dreamed of, and yet he can never seem to get it to go where it ought to. TARDIS malfunctions and/or miscalculations have set the stage for most of the Doctor’s misadventures, and I’m always more surprised when it hits the place in time it was aiming for than when it misses. Five minutes for the Doctor is twelve years for Amy, and the effect that had on her childhood and adolescence is evident in Amy’s grown-up child/childlike grown-up personality. I don’t think it will be hard for her to slip back into that sense of wonder at this man with a time machine – just look at how Rose and Martha reacted to the Doctor’s world without having had childhood encounters with him that impacted their lives for the next decade. There’s a very Peter Pan-like element to the end of the episode, where the Doctor, looking exactly the same as he always does (as far as she knows, at least) shows up in Amy’s garden after another two years – “fourteen years since fish custard,” in total – and takes her away on an adventure in her nightgown, like Wendy before her. Like Peter, the Doctor is upset by suddenly-grown-up Amy (“You were a little girl five minutes ago!”), and wants her to stay a child:

Amy: I grew up.
The Doctor: Don’t worry. I’ll soon fix that.

We shouldn’t be surprised, of course: Steven Moffat loves fairytales.

What about the Doctor himself? I’ve been saying for years that Tennant’s Doctor is my Doctor; I saw a couple Tennant episodes before going back and watching Christopher Eccleston, and as a result, was always a little more in love with Ten than with Nine. I haven’t seen much of the old series; a handful of the First Doctor episodes on YouTube and clips here and there of the others, but already Matt Smith’s Doctor has a special place in my heart. Perhaps because there are heavy shades of Tennant in the early part of his performance in “The Eleventh Hour,” and perhaps because Smith is clearly a much more talented actor than any of us gave him credit for, I’m already fond of this new incarnation. He may even do the twitchy, nutty side of the Doctor better than Tennant, unbelievably. I think he’ll win over any skeptical fans within the first hour.

Quick things I liked:

The new TARDIS will take some getting used to, but I love the faucet knobs and the typewriter on the console and the shiny new blue paint job on the outside.

I liked the rapid-fire frame-by-frame sequence that took us through what the Doctor saw in the little village square – mostly from a technical point of view, but it was a kind of whoa moment akin to that CSI clip I linked above.

I loved the dialogue; there are some wonderful one-liners throughout the episode (e.g. “No TARDIS, no screwdriver, two minutes to spare, WHO DA MAN?! … Oh, I’m never saying that again, fine.”)

Quick things I didn’t like:

The revelation that Amy is getting married in the morning: saw it coming a mile away. It does raise the stakes a little because we know that 1) the TARDIS isn’t particularly reliable when you’re trying to pinpoint a date (e.g. Rose gets home six months after leaving, rather than six hours) and 2) we’ve seen what happens when the Doctor doesn’t get the timing right (e.g. Mickey is the prime suspect in Rose’s murder; Harold Saxon wins the election)

The very Russell T. Davies-like foreshadowing of what will become the season finale plot. The Crack is the new Bad Wolf, and “Silence will fall” is going to get very old very quickly. I understand that this is the season’s story arc, and I agree that this show needs one, but I think we could have waited a week or two before getting the first glimpse of it.

So, what kind of man is the Doctor going to be this time? We get an inkling when he brings the Atraxi back to Earth just to call them out on their bullshit – incinerating the planet, guys, really? – in a “Earth is defended”-type moment. If Ten was the type of man who grimly granted no second chances, then Eleven is the kind who will force you to admit your wrongs, sort-of threaten you, tell you to run, and do it all with a smile on his face. In other words, he’s a little bit nuts.

But, really, isn’t that why we love the Doctor?

Law & Order: Criminal Intent: No nod, no wink

2010-04-01T20:53:00.003-05:00

The deeply troubling first part of the Law & Order: Criminal Intent premiere, "Loyalty," aired on Tuesday, and I finally had the time to watch it. Spoilers ahead. You've been warned.

I approached "Loyalty, Part 1" with some trepidation, and rightly so: if any of my other favorite TV shows -- regardless of network or genre -- decided to replace over half the cast in one fell swoop like this, I would be equally nervous (see: Doctor Who's changing of the guard). With this two-part premiere, though, the swoop isn't as fell as it could be; Goren and Eames are still digging into a double homicide as we open season nine, and while Captain Danny Ross is having some unusual discussions about creating a police force in Somalia, he's still around and still in charge...for now. The episode starts out the same way any other would: meet the players, find the bodies, get the cops on the case, visit Dr. Rodgers for the autopsy results, then start digging into the victims' lives. From there, however, we get into arms dealing and East African politics and that's where I start to get a little lost. The breakdown is this: as far as I can tell, there are three things going on here: 1) the Major Case homicide investigation, 2) an FBI investigation that puts Captain Ross undercover with unscrupulous (even murderous) arms dealers, and 3) what seems to be a series of shootings to avenge a sheikh killed by the arms dealers, or to ensure the weapons make it to Africa? The motives of the sheikh's children in New York aren't all that clear yet, but one thing is certain: it is a man connected to the dead sheikh who shoots and kills Captain Danny Ross.

This case seems unusually complicated for Criminal Intent, which often focuses more on the interplay between the suspects and police than on the nitty-gritty of the crime itself. By the end of this episode, Ross is dead, Goren, Eames, and Nichols have lost their about-to-become-cooperative suspect to the FBI, a heat-seeking missile exploded in the middle of New York (or New Jersey, maybe?) without anyone noticing, and I still wasn't entirely sure what was going on.

I was surprised by how hard it was to watch Danny Ross get shot; I've never been particularly attached to his character after being very fond of his predecessor, Captain James Deakins (Jamey Sheridan, who is about 80% of why I still watch Trauma), but it was tough to see him killed so quickly. No fanfare, no sentimentality, and unflinching. As it should be -- that's not what L&O is about. The best-worst part about Ross's death was seeing how upset Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers (Leslie Hendrix) was by it. There was a heavily-hinted-at relationship between Ross and Rodgers in seasons past, and her distress at both his death and being denied access to his body made his death hit home. Hendrix, Kathryn Erbe, and Vincent D'Onofrio were all very good in that particular scene. It was nice to see a little of the old Bobby Goren, fighting for access to his captain and the right to work the case, and it always gets me when the normally reserved Eames gets emotional. There were a few moments in this scene and the rest of the episode that didn't ring true, and there were several times when it sounded to me like D'Onofrio was just reciting lines, but I'm inclined to say the writing didn't quite get to where it needed to be -- one of the things that consistently bothers me about Criminal Intent is clunky dialogue. It's tough to get great performances when the material isn't quite at the same level as the actors.

Finally, there's been a lot said and written about the major cast shakeups going on this season, with regulars Vincent D'Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe (who have been on the show since season one) leaving, along with the Major Case Squad's captain for the past three seasons, Eric Bogosian, and new cast members Saffron Burrows and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio filling in around Jeff Goldblum's Detective Zack Nichols. To be perfectly honest, I was leery of Jeff "Notorious Show-Killer" Goldblum to begin with, but he won me over last season, and I'm dismayed by the fans who refuse to give him a chance. Those who scream in capslock that they refuse to watch the show anymore and will leave with D'Onofrio and Erbe just seem unreasonable to me. A revolving door of detectives has been part of the Law & Order franchise from the beginning. Goren & Eames (and Stabler & Benson on SVU, for that matter) are kind of anomalous when you look at the original series, which has seen plenty of actor turnover in the last twenty years -- just check out the chart of L&O characters from the Wikipedia article. I'm not saying I'm thrilled to see them go: I'm not. I've never been a fan of Saffron Burrows, and Kathryn Erbe's Detective Eames has been my favorite character for the last several seasons, so it's disappointing to know that it will be Burrows as Serena Stevens and not Eames that we'll see around the MCS squad room. In a perfect world, I would have liked to see Eames and Nichols partnered up; I thoroughly enjoyed watching them work together in last season's "Major Case" and "Revolution." However, we don't live in a perfect world, I'm not the Criminal Intent showrunner, and I'll have to live with the changes, just like everyone else. Dealing with writing, casting, and production decisions that make you unhappy is part of being a TV fan. You have to trust that the people in the production offices are doing what they think is going to work for the show (even if those of us on our couches have our doubts).

While waiting for the conclusion of "Loyalty" and with an eye toward the rest of season nine, I'm adopting a cautiously optimistic outlook. I'm hoping that their respective departures will be true to the Goren's and Eames's characters -- since characters are what USA Network is all about -- and that the remaining viewers and the network give Goldblum and Burrows a chance.

LOST, Season Six: The Befuddling

2010-02-03T13:42:00.002-06:00

That familiar feeling of utter confusion can only mean one thing: LOST IS BACK!

Warning: there will be many spoilers in the text to follow.

Okay, so what are we dealing with? Parallel universes? Divergent paths that split at the moment 815 started to break up, meaning that we have one reality in which events progressed the way they have over the course of the series and one in which the plane makes it to LAX and things pan out the way we saw them in the premiere? Tough to tell right away. Unlike the flashback/forward device the show has used for the last five years, it's not immediately clear what's going on, and the possibility of there being multiple realities within the context of the show makes my head hurt a little bit. But that's exactly what's going on, according to executive producers and Lost gurus Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. They're calling the device a flash-sideways, since it presents two different universes that appear to be linked in some way. Darlton are, of course, being vague about what the relationship between these worlds actually is, but that's to be expected. If we knew what was going on, it wouldn't be Lost.

A couple thoughts on “LAX, Parts 1 & 2”:

First off, I was Not Pleased that Juliet didn't survive the first hour. As my friend J can tell you, I've been insistent that she and Sawyer get together since way before we, the audience, were ever supposed to consider it. For me, they were meant for each other from the moment she first Tased him. I understand that Elizabeth Mitchell is on V now, but really, Juliet Burke is a much more interesting and compelling character than Erica Evans, and I'd much rather watch the former than the latter. I'm sure there's a show out there that can showcase Mitchell's talent to its fullest, but I just don't think V is that show. Josh Holloway gets some quality brooding, grimacing, and Sawyerly growling out of Juliet's death, but I feel like taking her out of the equation sets him back significantly in terms of character development. He's back to being the bristling, uncouth loner who hoarded all the supplies in camp, had a contentious relationship/rivalry with Jack, and thought he was in love with Kate (because he hadn't met Juliet yet) – and if there's one thing I will not tolerate in this final season, it is the will-they-won't-they Jack-Kate-Sawyer triangle. As far as I'm concerned, Sawyer is Juliet's man forever, and Jack and Kate deserve each other. The two of them can lame off into the sunset together.

One theory that has been posited relates to the message Miles conveyed from Juliet to Sawyer: “It worked.” Referring, presumably, to the detonation of the Jughead bomb and the other timeline, in which Oceanic 815 never crashed. The theory is that Juliet's seemingly nonsensical dying words (“Let's have coffee sometime...Dutch treat”) indicate some kind of connection to the other world, in which Juliet and Sawyer have never met. As she dies on the island, does she have some sort of psychic connection to another, parallel existence in which she and Sawyer meet under different circumstances? It'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

Ben gets a lesson in turnabout being fair play; after manipulating, controlling, and using the people around him for so long, Ben gets played by Jacob's mysterious nemesis (who confirms that he is, indeed, the smoke monster). Ben is horrified, terrified, and kind of helpless against the unreal power of this entity that looks and sounds like John Locke, but is obviously something else altogether. It's interesting to see Ben put in a very submissive role after so long as the Others' leader and one of the most dangerous characters on the show. Ben has been very cool and in control for much of his tenure on the show, and it's fun to see him freaked out by the “Man in Black.” I really enjoy watching Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn together, especially now that they've presented O'Quinn with the opportunity to be really, truly creepy and deliver slightly cryptic monologues that make him even more sinister. He played Locke fairly benign (you know, for a knife-toting, boar-hunting believer in the powers of a mystical island), and it's startling to see him be violent and malevolent – startling, but entertaining.

There were some frustrating moments in the two-hour premiere, but ultimately, it looks like it will be a great final season. Former regulars now returning – Claire! – and all the on-island characters finally in the same year – Jin and Sun! – and a parade of dead minor characters brought back to life by the parallel-storyline device (worth it just for Greg Grunberg's voiceover as Captain Seth Norris on the plane – Viva Grunny!) give us the potential for some great mind-boggling TV. Bring it on!

Cast from the Past: Battlestar Galactica

2009-11-18T12:21:00.000-06:00

From time to time, a show comes along with a cast so stacked with talent that it actually hurts a little to think about. Deadwood was one (Ian McShane is the heavyweight scenery-chewing champion of the world), as was The West Wing. More recently, the rebooted Battlestar Galactica was excellent and entirely underappreciated. What made BSG all the more impressive was that it came from the SciFi network (back when the name made sense), the people responsible for SciFi Movies of the Week, which (in my experience, at least) are patently terrible.

Admittedly, I didn't start watching until the series was already over, in part because I knew how agonized my friend and roommate, hereafter known as J, was when she had to wait for new episodes. I wasn't going to put myself through that torture voluntarily. I still haven't seen Battlestar Galactica: The Plan because 1) I don't get SyFy (oy) anymore and 2) Blockbuster is kind of far away, man, get off my back. Once I did start getting the DVDs from my public library, I was immediately hooked. Not only was the series way better than anything on SciFi had a right to be, but the entire cast was, in a word, perfect. Of course Edward James Olmos is the world-weary, trustworthy commander -- what else could he be (apart from a Supreme Court justice on The West Wing, of course)? Jamie Bamber played his son, Lee Adama, with the perfect self-righteous, whiny, holier-than-thou tone and, eventually, a passable American accent. You'd never know that Katee Sackhoff is a girly-girl in real life after watching her the reckless, hard-drinking, cigar-smoking, completely unstable pilot, Starbuck. It's interesting to take a look at what the actors have been doing since hanging up their guns and (spoiler alert) sending their ships into the sun.

A few of the higher-profile actors from the series have landed on different TV series on a long-term basis. Tahmoh Penikett (Karl "Helo" Agathon) is an FBI agent on Fox's Dollhouse, which just got the axe. Much as I loved Helo, his mere presence wasn't enough to pull me in. The only episode I've watched was the one with Jamie Bamber (AKA Prissy Lee Adama), which I watched because Helo and Apollo were going to share the screen, however briefly. Grace Park (Sharon "Boomer" Valerii/Sharon "Athena" Agathon, Number Eight, etc.) was first on The Cleaner and now on the Canadian series The Border. The aforementioned Jamie Bamber is busy playing the Detective Mike Logan (Chris Noth circa 1990) equivalent on Law & Order: UK over in Britain (which is fantastic, from what I've seen). Aaron Douglas (Galen Tyrol) stars as a union leader in a Canadian series, The Bridge, debuting in 2010, while Katee Sackhoff (Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, of course) will be on 24.

As for guest appearances, the last few weeks have been unusually busy for ex-BSGers. The second episode of ABC's V featured President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell)'s onetime assistant, Tory (Rekha Sharma), wandering through as an FBI agent (unfortunately, because of Tory's arc on BSG, I'm already suspicious of her FBI character being a secret underground alien -- but there's always hope that they won't typecast). Callum Keith Rennie (Leoben Conoy) was on FlashForward, playing a shady SOB (again, sigh, CKR) involved with the mysterious Blue Hand group. The always enjoyable Mark Sheppard (unscrupulous attorney Romo Lampkin as well as Firefly's Badger) was a Russian lit professor/pimp on the concluding episode of the much-hyped CSI "Trilogy" crossover, though his Russian accent -- by way of London -- left a little something to be desired. It's always nice to see them pop up on shows that have nothing to do with space or robots or aliens -- not because I don't enjoy sci-fi, but because it's always a little jarring to see them out of what I think of as their natural environment (but is really just the only setting in which I have seen them).

We haven't heard much from some of the major players: the Admiral himself, Edward James Olmos, hasn't been around much (his last major non-BSG credit is...Beverly Hills Chihuahua? That...that can't be right), while Michael Hogan (Col. Saul Tigh) has popped up on Dollhouse and Warehouse 13, apparently (and using both his eyes, I assume). Madam President Mary McDonnell is on The Closer, I guess? I don't watch it. Crazy Ellen Tigh, Kate Vernon, is due to turn up on Heroes, according to Greg Grunberg's Twitter, where she will undoubtedly pwn everyone in sight. So...could Michael, Mary, or Kate please coax Olmos out of whatever semi-retirement he's pretending to have so we can see Adama strolling across the small screen (or the big screen!) again? (Or better yet, kicking ass and taking names.)

Monday TV: Bits & Pieces

2009-11-17T23:17:00.007-06:00

I've been remiss in my blogging duties, due in large part to having a lot of projects to juggle and not having learned to juggle, um, ever. I'll try harder from here on out...I think.

Highlights from Monday night's primetime lineups:

How I Met Your Mother followed up the Barney/Robin breakup with the rather lackluster "The Playbook," which saw Robin throwing herself into work and Barney throwing himself into women with renewed determination. Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan were fantastic, as they always are when they're paired up in an episode, but I wasn't bowled over by the episode as a whole. It feels like the Barney/Robin relationship was cut short, and that they're not taking advantage of the mileage it still had in it. Hopefully they'll go back to it in the future.

The Big Bang Theory had a great storyline and a useless one. While Leonard, Koothrappali, and Wolowitz went camping to watch the Leonid meteor shower, Penny falls in the shower, dislocates her shoulder, and has to rely on Sheldon for help. Sheldon 1) feels Penny up, 2) drives a car, 3) takes a gander at the Chinese character tattooed on Penny's butt (it means "soup," apparently), and 4) sings "Soft Kitty" in a round with her. It was five kinds of hysterical, while the boys on their camping trip got high and were only mildly entertaining.

Castle had a solid episode full of ex-cons and call girls. There was a convicted felon-slash-wordsmith who wanted to go to locksmith school, ex-Law & Order: SVU ADA Kim Grayleck as a hooker, and a star prosecutor who turned out to be a pimp. There are some great twists in this episode, and enough comedy to balance out the few eye-rolling moments (courtesy of Scarlett, the call girl). Meanwhile, Castle is concerned because his daughter is keeping a secret from him--but she's willing to talk to Detective Beckett about it. I've said before that I don't generally like characters' teenage offspring (for the latest example, see Erica Evans' son on V), but Alexis Castle and Emily Lightman on Lie to Me are the exceptions: both are intelligent young women who are, more often than not, more sensible and mature than their fathers, and the grounding influences for men who could get big heads while being lauded as brilliant in their respective fields (crime novels and deception). If only all teenagers could be like these girls.

Dancing With the Stars did some sob stories about the semifinalists' lives pre-DWTS (Donny Osmond wasn't taken seriously as an ARTIST, Joanna Krupa's mother brought her to America for a better life, Mya's family didn't even know she could sing until she was 14 and then her parents got divorced, MTV and reality television got Kelly Osbourne addicted to drugs) and there was a lot of glitter and sequins and Bruno Tonioli being outrageous and Len Goodman being chagrined and Carrie-Anne Inaba being critical for no good reason. Then, Samantha Harris was irrelevant. So, really, it was like any other week.

Lie to Me saw Foster and Lightman colluding to do something behind their FBI liaison's back, which I always enjoy, and Loker trying to work his way back into a paying position at the Lightman Group. Torres was annoying, and there was a lot of teenage angst from Emily Lightman and Max, a sixteen-year-old fan of Cal's book who was convinced his parents had kidnapped him as an infant.

I hear House kicked Cameron to the curb, but I gave up on that show halfway through last season, so all I can say is that it's a shame, because I think they wasted Jennifer Morrison for most of seasons four and five.

Trauma was better than last week, which completely underwhelmed me, plus Rabbit not only delivered a baby (in the helicopter!) that came out feet first, but the kid's Hungarian parents named the kid after him. As in, they named the kid "Rabbit," not "Reuben." Marisa threw a hissy fit and then sulked. Tyler and Boone pulled a double and guzzled energy drinks, Nancy had lunch with her father (Christian Shephard of Lost) and brother (Sully of Harper's Island) and then commiserated about "the family business" with Dad. Probie Glenn and Intern Diana discovered they're both from Pennsylvania and they're so happy and giggly and nauseatingly adorable that I sincerely hope they end up together at the end of the tragically-short series.

Heroes finally answered the question that's been bothering many viewers: "Where's Mohinder?" Well, he's in a mental institution (thanks to Hiro), but it's better than where he was before, which was nowhere, because he was dead. Aptly named "Brother's Keeper," this week's episode featured a lot of brothers. The Sullivans (Joseph, deceased in the regular timeline, and Samuel, of whom we've seen a lot this season), in a flashback, frustrate Suresh and then kill him, except not, because Hiro went back in time and put a Kevlar vest on him? Yeah, it was that kind of episode. The Petrellis, meanwhile, find Nathan's dead body in a storage unit, find and save Matt Parkman/Sylar, and may or may not have reunited Sylar's brain with his body. Look, all I know is that Zachary Quinto and his hair have looked even more amazing than usual lately, so I'm all for him sticking around. There was some stuff with Claire and Tracy trying to control Tracy's freezing, but it was so boring that I can't justify wasting space on it.

I'll try out this around-the-dial approach for busy TV nights; comments, queries, suggestions, and criticism should be directed to the comment link below!

Criminal Minds: “What's a BFF?”

2009-11-12T17:03:00.006-06:00

Full disclosure: I do, on occasion, refer to Criminal Minds' Supervisory Special Agent Doctor Spencer Reid (Ph.D., not M.D.) as “My Future Husband, Supervisory Special Agent Doctor Spencer Reid.” Last night's episode, “The Performer,” did absolutely nothing to temper my love for the good doctor, but rather made me giggle and clap like a kid at the circus. But more on that later.

“The Performer,” written by Holly Harold, centers around a series of murders in which the victims are exsanguinated via a pair of puncture wounds on the neck. Oh, that's right, folks, it's a VAMPIRE episode! You know, when I added a “cashing in on vampires” tag to this blog, I never expected to use it this frequently. That being said, I don't think CM is necessarily trying to cash in on vamps, since I can't imagine a way to make money off a single episode of a TV series that isn't available on iTunes or Amazon (yet). I don't think the show has dealt with vampirism before this, and it's an interesting psychological facet for the killer.

The titular performer is “Dante” a sort of HIM-like vampire rock star, played by – hey, that's Gavin Rossdale! Hi, Gavin Rossdale! Does Gwen know you're out in that makeup? He sings a cover of Joy Division's “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and then, because he's a real rock star, drinks straight from the bottle and smashes things backstage. Meanwhile, a concertgoer with really unfortunate hair gets murdered and dumped on a freeway exit ramp. Clip below:

Our intrepid team of BAU agents spends some time with a detective we last met, I believe, when Reid was getting up close and personal with a comely starlet being threatened by a stalker. Matthew Gray Gubler gets opening-quote honors this week, with a bit of Montague Summers (whose book on werewolves is sitting on my desk right now, actually). Supervisory Special Agent Doctor Spencer Reid is full of fun information about vampirism and cannibalism that makes me glad I don't have to visit crime scenes for a living. There's also the interesting tidbit that the sort of obsession with blood and vampires that characterizes this weeks "unsub" (suspect) is referred to as "Renfield syndrome," after the character in Bram Stoker's Dracula. During the course of the investigation, we get other vampire references, including one to that vampire megafranchise that's getting its second installment next week – the victim's computer password is “Cullen” – and, in my favorite moment of the episode, we find out that Reid doesn't know what Twilight is. Reid has never heard of Twilight and I love him a little more with each passing moment.

The Good: Gavin Rossdale does a decent job as the drug-addicted (I assume) rock star and murder suspect who hates his vampire persona. I thought he was much more watchable here than in Constantine. Of course, that may be because Constantine was kind of terrible (in a fun way!). He looks terrible in the vampire makeup, but I'm sure the same could be said of anyone in that getup. The writing was better than it is for most well-hyped celebrity cameos, and Rossdale does a surprisingly good job of delivering it convincingly. The team banters a little bit, talking about their favorite albums and musicians at the end of the episode, which goes a long way toward relieving the heavy violence and drama that is the trademark of a show about serial killers. Also, Reid's complete cluelessness when it comes to pop culture is always good comic relief.

The Bad: J.J. ignores warning bells (e.g. the kind of muttering only crazy people do) and walks into a situation with no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. Her lack of perceptiveness seems odd for an FBI agent, especially one who, while not a profiler herself, has worked with the Behavioral Analysis Unit for over five years now – what, she hasn't learned anything from either her training or from working with the other BAU agents? Besides, in addition to being an FBI agent, she's also a new mother, and while J.J. has never been afraid to put herself at risk when it's her job, she's always backed down when the others told her to consider her baby. You would think walking into a house that looks that crazy with someone who's acting that crazy might give her pause, even if she's not expecting trouble.

Verdict: Very entertaining and definitely worth a rewatch. Too bad it's not on CBS.com or iTunes or Amazon or Hulu. I'll be watching for this one during rerun season.

Movie Kitsch: Dracula, 1992

2009-11-09T20:50:00.007-06:00

Flash from the past time.

I was seven years old when Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula came out, so I was barely aware that it even existed until a few years ago, when Gary Oldman had just been cast as Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and someone mentioned that included in his pantheon of Crazy Villainous Characters was Count Dracula.

The full feature film is available on Hulu (although you have to register and be over 17 to watch it), so I figured, why not?

Okay.

First of all, I'm not sure I've ever seen a Coppola movie before, but I was under the impression that he's regarded as a great, talented director. Did he lose a bet with Scorsese or something? Because this was...not what I'd expected. On paper, it sounds like an amazing movie: Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Gary Oldman (GARY OLDMAN!) with Anthony Hopkins (SIR ANTHONY HOPKINS!), Richard E. Grant, and the woefully underrated Cary Elwes (AKA Wesley, the Dread Pirate Roberts), back when he was still young and dreamy. Then you throw in Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder and everything goes to hell.

Oldman gnaws on the scenery with everything he's got, Sadie Frost makes her topless film debut, the women do lots of moaning and writhing and exposing of breasts, Keanu sounds like the Britishest dude in Malibu, and Tom Waits hangs out a window, screaming for his master. Then we get this moment of weirdness:

Maybe I'm just coming to this from the wrong generational viewpoint -- most of the reviews on Hulu are from people who saw the movie when it came out and are surprisingly laudatory, with criticism only for Ryder & Reeves -- but I only found Dracula entertaining because it was so terrible. I'm so used to Gary Oldman in his recent, subtler performances (and less evil, e.g. Potter's Sirius Black and Jim Gordon of the Batman movies) that this hissing, writhing, amped-up monster of a villain just seems silly. Speaking of silly, Keanu's accent is too God-awful to take seriously, much like the attempt to give him gray hair after his harrowing foursome with Dracula's three vampire wives. Keanu, darling, you're adorable, but perhaps you ought to stick to silent films or modeling. Winona's in a little better, but whenever she opens her mouth, I just hear Veronica's diary entries from Heathers ("Dear Diary...").

I did catch the line "You are my life now," which landed itself in Twilight a decade later, and managed to sound even creepier coming from Edward Cullen, and the whole long-lost One True Love thing turned up in The Vampire Diaries, I believe, which just goes to show you how little there really is to draw from when it comes to vampire lore. We're going to run out of innovative ways to make them compelling before too long (although I will love True Blood until its dying day) -- remember the zombie craze of a couple years ago? What happened to that? It's only a matter of time before the girls who started their adolescences in the Age of Twilight figure out that there are other (living, better-written) fish in the sea. As for the post-vampire heyday fantasy world, there have been some interesting theories put forward as to what the next craze might be.

In any case, I don't know where this movie went wrong, but it's a shame that something with such promise fails to deliver, and that after winning three Oscars (costume design, sound editing, & makeup), it isn't nearly as impressive seventeen years later. Sorry, Dracula, but I'm not a fan.

P.S. I just realized that Bill Campbell, the actor playing the poor, doomed American, Quincey Morris, is actually Billy Campbell, the dad from Once and Again and the unlikely abusive husband from that Jennifer Lopez movie, Enough. Huh. The things you learn from the internet.

Thank you, Community

2009-11-07T21:05:00.005-06:00

NBC’s Community is one of my favorite new shows this season. On Thursday night, it got even better:

WHY HELLO THERE, JOEL MCHALE.

And thank you, Community, for that bit of naked man torso.

V: Return of the HBIC

2009-11-07T11:52:00.005-06:00

Having missed the premiere of V on Tuesday, I had to wait until it showed up online this morning to watch it. A mere five minutes after watching, what sticks with me is this: what's with all the wacky camera angles? Behold:

It's like watching that student film I made my sophomore year of college. That, or a pale imitation of Bergman. Here's a hint for aspiring filmmakers: no one looks good when the camera's going up their nostrils. True story.

Apart from the weirdo camera work, it was a pretty solid pilot: good writing, interesting plot, and the effects were, for the most part, well-done as well. What drew me to the show was the handful of alumni from some of my other favorite shows. Elizabeth Mitchell, otherwise known as HBIC (Head Bitch in Charge) and Sawyer's One True Love Juliet Burke from Lost, is FBI agent Erica Evans, while Morena Baccarin (Inara Serra of Firefly) is the alien Visitors' leader, Anna. Another surprise Firefly alum was Alan Tudyk, playing Erica's FBI partner who...was not actually all that he seemed, alas. But can we please get this man a regular job on another TV show? We all (still) miss Wash. (In other news, ABC gets props for employing Captain Mal, Inara, Zoe--on FlashForward--and Wash.)

I wasn't thrilled with the subplot involving Erica's teenaged son, Tyler, and his obsession with the Vs. For one, how does he expect his little crush on one of the alien Visitors to pan out? Is he hoping to sex up a reptile here? I'm not sure how I feel about the interspecies love. Then again, I'm not usually fond of characters' teenaged children on any show, so this may be just my particular aversion to angst.

I'll keep tuning in, if only to see how they plan to stretch this out to more than one season. If I recall correctly, V is based on a miniseries (which I have not seen), which would seem to be a better format for this kind of not-what-they-seem-alien-invasion story. Then again, I'm perplexed by FlashForward as a regular, rather than mini-, series as well, so we'll see how both turn out.

Verdict: Gold star, V.

Kudos: NCIS

2009-11-04T19:46:00.002-06:00

I'm not a huge NCIS fan, but my family watches during dinner on Tuesday nights (which is why I missed the V premiere), so I caught last night's episode, "Outlaws and In-Laws," written by Jesse Stern. I've never heard of Jesse Stern before, nor am I familiar with anything he's written, but the writing on this particular episode was fantastic. Snappy dialogue, sight gags, very funny moments, and good use of all the regular characters and the guest actors, as well. Kudos, sir, for a very entertaining hour of television!

Trauma: Everybody Loves Nancy

2009-11-04T15:23:00.007-06:00

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I do love Trauma. It's officially not getting a second season (or a full first season, for that matter), so I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Spoilers abound below.

This week saw the continuation of the mildly irritating Nancyphilia that seems to go around. Not only is Nancy apparently an extraordinarily talented surgeon, she's also an object of desire for Glenn, Rabbit, and now Dr. Joe? Please. I know NBC doesn't have fourteen-year-old girls writing this show, so the Mary-Sue angle doesn't make a whole lot of sense here. It was nice to see the whole team together at the end, since we spend so much of each episode bouncing around between them (have Marisa and Nancy ever been in the same scene together before now?), and to see the genuine concern for one of their own (Tyler's anguish over having to leave Nancy to take care of the victims on the bus that hit the ambulance was particularly compelling), and to see Rabbit drop all pretense of his devil-may-care swagger when Nancy, his ex-partner and perhaps the only person who understands how much he misses Terry, is in danger.

The Good: Glenn redeemed himself a little in his scenes with Intern Diana, commiserating with a fellow newbie, and it was nice to see that in spite of Boone's homophobia during Halloween in the Castro, the friendship he's forged with Tyler over three years as partners is still there and still strong. I think Anastasia Griffith and Cliff Curtis have excellent chemistry, and they continued to do an outstanding job of playing the incredibly complicated relationship between Nancy and Rabbit.

The Bad: Nancy's father (AKA undead Christian Shephard from Lost) accusing Dr. Joe of being in love with Nancy. What? I've always assumed his affection for her is quasi-paternal, not anything skeevy--it's Jamey Sheridan, guys! Come on! Jamey Sheridan does not perv on your daughter! Also getting the thumbs-down is Rabbit's freakout on the Fat Guy At The Beach, having a Fake Heart Attack, Sorry Guys. The purpose of the scene was admirable--what Rabbit really wants is to be at the hospital with Nancy, but he has to come deal with your fake heart attack instead? Rage ensues--but I feel like it could have been done differently. Cliff Curtis did his best with what he was given, however, so kudos, Cliff.

Verdict: Good episode, though not as entertaining as last week's Halloween episode, and nowhere near as good as "Bad Day at Work." See you next week, Trauma.

TV Rant: Law & Order CI, where bad decisions are made

2009-10-26T16:24:00.003-05:00

I despaired when USA Network announced that Vincent D'Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe would be leaving Law & Order: Criminal Intent (nothing against Eric Bogosian, who's also leaving, but I've never stopped missing Jamey Sheridan as Capt. Deakins). That despair is nothing compared to the indignation brought on by this announcement from The Hollywood Reporter: “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” Kills One of Its Own

Massively stupid move, guys.

Why? Because if they go with the safe option and kill Captain Ross, they're killing off the least popular of the three departing characters, which is just a ratings ploy, plain and simple. Similar stunts have been pulled by CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and CSI: NY, where a character death was teased to death in commercials, but the deceased party ended up being a recurring detective, rather than one of the show regulars. They probably won't kill Goren, since D'Onofrio's made comments via his rep that indicate he'll likely come back to visit the show in the future.

That leaves Detective Alexandra Eames (Kathryn Erbe), who might be my favorite character on the show. My favorite part of CI's last season was watching her work with Jeff Goldblum's Det. Zack Nichols, who's got a little of the energy that Goren's been lacking of late, and whose oddball antics are a nice complement to Eames' dry wit and level-headed investigative style. I had hoped that if D'Onofrio left the show, they'd pair up Eames and Nichols, but alas. Eames is probably going to die, which is a dumb move, in my opinion. The best way to lose viewers is to needlessly kill off one of the only remaining original characters, and one of which viewers -- it can't be just me -- are very fond.

What is going on over at USA? Are they actively trying to sabotage what used to be one of the most entertaining shows on television? Poorly played, guys.

Check out the story where I came across it, on All Things Law & Order.

Welcome to Culture Kitsch

2009-10-25T00:18:00.002-05:00

So, what is Culture Kitsch?

Well, firstly, it's a place for me to talk TV and movies, with occasional forays into the worlds of music and literature. I'm unemployed and have ample time to venture into the vast wasteland of media--particularly television--and with nothing else to do with my fancy college degree, I'm putting my skills to work sharing my opinions and impressions with the internet at large (or whoever happens to stumble upon this patch of pixels).

Why "Culture Kitsch?" Because while I was ~~agonizing over~~ pondering blog names, I thought about my ninth grade English teacher, Mr. Hoeger, who would start each class with an activity he called "Highbrow and Kitschy Culture," wherein he would talk about music, books, movies, photography, or whatever, really. Sometimes we talked about the Baroque. Sometimes we listed to "Big Rock Candy Mountain" (which is still in my iTunes library today, thanks to O Brother, Where Art Thou?):

Big Rock Candy Mountain - Harry McClintock

The phrase--"highbrow & kitschy culture," that is--stuck with me, so here we are.

Culture Kitsch is a place where I'll talk about the mediocre television I'm watching and the books that inspired it. I'll riff on the Twilight debacle of the week, and try to keep up with pop culture.

I've already posted a few of entries below. Try them on for size, see how they feel. If you like what you read, come along for the ride!

Undercover paramedic

2009-10-25T00:04:00.001-05:00

For the record, my favorite part of any Law & Order episode, be it the original series, SVU, or Criminal Intent, is when the detectives go undercover.

Detectives Lupo & Bernard:

Undercover Paramedic and Dr. Policeman:

This made me almost as happy as that time Goren & Eames went shoe shopping (undercover, of course).

TV Rave: Trauma

2009-10-20T21:34:00.002-05:00

I realize that I’m probably the only person watching NBC’s Trauma, but I don’t care. I love it. I love the way it doesn’t bore me to death (House), make me want to vomit (Grey’s Anatomy), or fail in its attempts to captivate me with the ready-made angst-o-rama of its protagonist (Mercy). The previews actually made me want to watch (unlike, say, Three Rivers) and the helicopter crash in their pilot episode actually served a purpose (I’m looking at you here, ER).

The show follows three pairs of paramedics in San Francisco: Nancy and Glenn, Boone and Tyler, and Marisa and Rabbit. Four ride in ambulances, while Marisa and Rabbit fly in “Angel Two,” a medevac helicopter. The characters aren’t particularly innovative, but the clichés aren’t too bad: Glenn Morrison is the new guy, so green he fainted at the sight of a severed arm in the last episode, while partner Nancy Carnahan is a jaded M.D. who prefers paramedic work to the hospital (though the reasons why aren’t exactly clear). Cameron Boone is a recovering womanizer struggling to avoid a divorce; Tyler Briggs is some sort of gypsy medic, having worked in cities across the country, including New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Marisa Benez was a combat helicopter pilot in Baghdad who’s good with machines but not so much with people, and Reuben “Rabbit” Palchuck is the cocky, slightly unhinged medic she flies. Rabbit and Nancy have good reason to be a little standoffish or prickly: the pilot begins a year before the rest of the series, when a devastating two-helicopter crash killed Nancy’s partner and boyfriend, Terry, and left Rabbit, apparently the crash’s sole survivor, in a coma.

Our heroes deal with several small incidents and a medium or large call before the end of each episode—I think that’s why I like it so much: they don’t try to squeeze 60 minutes of drama (with commercials!) out of one or two cases. House became so formulaic that I abandoned it halfway through last season. Here, when you hit the twenty minute mark, you’re not just waiting for the new, bizarre symptom to show up. In a given episode, the EMTs might be dealing with a spinal injury or a fake heart attack, or Boone might be in marriage counseling with his wife (yawn). It’s different every week. Score one for Trauma.

Also? I LOVE EXPLOSIONS. I loved when [spoiler] the hotel went boom at the end of Quantum of Solace[/spoiler] and that HUGE ambulance explosion on the fourth season premiere of Criminal Minds where for all of ten seconds I thought they’d actually killed off Shemar Moore. The Trauma premiere has a fiery helicopter crash and an oil tanker explosion. Michael Bay is probably a fan of Trauma, too.

There’s much less soap-opera personal life angst than you’d think—it’s not overwhelming, since they tend to condense all the characters’ issues into about five minutes of show, after you’ve come down from the adrenaline rush of all the fireballs and rescues and LIFE OR DEATH DECISIONS OMG. Whoever writes this show does a decent job of keeping the melodrama to a minimum—on the personal front. Plus, they’ve got Jamey Sheridan. Who doesn’t like (and still miss!) Captain Deakins and his eyepatch on Law & Order: Criminal Intent? Sheridan is eminently likeable as Dr. Joe Saviano, the ER doctor who coordinates with the medics in the field.

Here’s the downside: I’ve heard the ratings are dismal (it’s on against the amazing The Big Bang Theory and the underwhelming Gary Unmarried on CBS, the second hour of Dancing with the Stars on ABC, and a personal favorite, Lie to Me, on Fox), and they’ve taken to rerunning it on Saturdays in an attempt to get more viewers. Hulu’s even stopped promoting new streaming episodes on the front page. My point? I’m surprised NBC, with its history of doing such things, hasn’t pulled the rest of the new episodes from the air and made them online-only à la The Black Donnellys.

Besides the poor ratings, there’s apparently been some sort of kerfuffle about how the show inaccurately and/or negatively portrays emergency medical personnel. My response—both as a writer and as a TV viewer—is that this isn’t a documentary. It’s a television drama. There are some things that don’t translate from reality to the small screen (why do you think reality shows are scripted?) and a show like Trauma is going to amp up the action as much as possible. Why? Entertainment. I don’t watch television because I want a perfectly accurate depiction of real life (news programming and PBS excepted). I watch because I want to be entertained, so I can stop thinking about what will happen if I never find a job, or if I shouldn’t drink quite so much Coke, or how I haven’t called that one friend in about five months and we’re probably not even friends anymore and it’s kind of my fault, or WHATEVER. It’s escapism at its finest, and if I choose mediocre TV, then that’s my decision. Now, if someone did a television show about employees at an archival library and didn’t show them using acid-free materials and taking special measures while handling archival materials to ensure the preservation of the items in the collections, I might be a little chagrined, but I wouldn’t get all up in arms about it. Basically, what I’m saying to the upset medical workers is this: RELAX, IT’S JUST TELEVISION. The folks who work on TV shows like Trauma are going to use their creative license to punch up reality into something resembling reality, but with prettier people with terrible love lives. And bigger explosions.

So here’s hoping the rest of the season’s episodes make it onto the air. Or, rather, onto Hulu, where I watch it, since my family’s watching Dancing with the Stars.

C’est la vie.

Fall TV: Returning series

2009-09-26T23:09:00.000-05:00

How did returning series fare during premiere week? Here's my two cents:

1) Castle (Mon, ABC): I loved the first season (and I'm waiting for my DVD set to arrive in the mail). I followed Richard Castle's exploits on TWitter over the summer (over here). I was super-excited to see how they'd handle Castle returning to the cop team after ignoring Beckett's very clear no-digging-into-my-mom's-homicide-or-you-and-I-are-done rule. Basically, Castle is now promoting Heat Wave, the Nikki Heat novel (you can read the first six chapters at abc.com, by the way), and Capt. Montgomery and the mayor believe that having Castle ride along while he's got a reporter from Cosmo tailing him will be good press for the NYPD. Meanwhile, Beckett's all but giving him the silent treatment (and so is coroner Lanie Parish, who's backing up her BFF Beckett) and we're basically back to day one, when Beckett was most annoyed by having Castle around. The story was perhaps a little convoluted, and they had Stana Katic use her awful Russian accent last heard during the 30 seconds she was on Heroes (but at least it wasn't her even worse French accent from The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice) and strip down to a cardigan, belt, and heels -- no pants, of course -- to save Castle from the murderer. Apart from the gimmicks, the dialogue is just as snappy and smart as last season, I was amused by the incorporation of details from the summer Twitter mystery on the show proper, and I'm glad to see that Beckett and Castle's friendship is on the mend after he, you know, APOLOGIZED for violating her trust. Looking forward to the rest of the season!

2) CSI: NY (Wed, CBS): I've had my issues with my darling, beloved CSI: NY. We've had a couple of spats, a big ol' falling out over the Danny/Lindsay marriage and baby, and I've threatened the writers with bodily harm on more than one occasion. I loathe the punny one-liners they force Gary Sinise to deliver to take them to the credits. I actually cried a little when they killed off the very capable Detective Jessica Angell at the end of last season (which, BTW, is the second female regular they've killed off, and I don't believe we've lost any of the men). There are some actual talented actors on that cast who are given jack shit to work with in the scripts, and are forced to try to sell romantic pairings that have little or no chemistry (e.g. Danny/Lindsay, Mac/any woman except Lindsay, although I may be biased). So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they'd done a couple relatively brave things with the season premiere: first, Stella and Adam hooked up, which no one saw coming except everyone who knew Adam has had a huge crush on Stella FOREVER. Second, and more importantly, they put Danny in a wheelchair, having lost the use of his legs in the drive-by machine-gun attack that ended last season in a very pale imitation of The West Wing's "Who's been hit? Who's been hit?" cliffhanger. However temporary Danny's paralysis may be (remember what show this is), I'm glad they took the chance on dramatically changing his life and giving him room to really grow as a character for the first time in a long time. Of course, they've added a new blonde character, Haylen Becall, played by quite possibly my least favorite actress to make the rounds of CBS dramas, Sarah Carter (she's been on Numb3rs and the thankfully canceled Shark already) and her little-girl voice. Haylen is a crime scene cleanup tech who wants Adam's job. Bitch, please. It's like Riley Adams over on the CSI mothership: I hate her already. Apart from the high points I've mentioned, the premiere was more of the same. I still don't like Lindsay. Hawkes still doesn't get enough screen time. AND WHERE IS DOCTOR SNAPPY GLASSES? Disappointing overall.

3) CSI (Thurs, CBS): Now, unlike its Wednesday night spinoff, the original crime lab did not disappoint. I mean, sure, there was a lot of gimmicky bullet-time, but the effect was...kind of mind-blowing, actually. Anyway, Riley Adams is gone (HUZZAH!), having left a snippy exit interview criticizing Catherine's leadership and claiming there's no team unity. News flash, Riley: did you ever think maybe it wasn't that there was no team unity, it was just that nobody liked you? So Riley's out, recently departed Sara Sidle is back to help round out the understaffed team's roster for a few episodes this season, Ray Langston (Laurence Fishburne) has earned his CSI Level 2 credentials, and the long-suffering Nick Stokes got promoted to assistant shift supervisor. Meanwhile, Liz Vassey (DNA tech Wendy Simms) and David Berman (Assistant ME David Phillips) are regulars this season, meaning they get to be featured in the opening credits. Selfishly, I hope this means we get a lot more Wendy/Hodges will-they-won't-they this season. They're my CSI OTP, for real. The end of the premiere episode seems to set up a serial killer storyline, according to clips from next week -- I hope this is just a one-episode thing. The last time they did a serial killer, it was the Miniature Killer and it consumed the season in a thick cloud of melodrama that I could really have lived without. Nevertheless, looks like a promising landmark season ten.

4) How I Met Your Mother (Mon, CBS): Now that all the pregnancies are out of the way, I can stop getting distracted by Lily and Robin's huge, billowy shirts and suspiciously large purses and get back to just watching the show. I wasn't bowled over by the premiere, mostly because I hate super-awkward situations as comedy (I get too embarrassed for other people to actually appreciate how funny it is), so Ted's classroom mixup on his first day as a professor -- well, technically he'd be just an instructor, I think, but whatever -- was more painful than anything else, and I'm not sure how I felt about Lily's whole Barney-and-Robin-MUST-define-the-relationship thing. I mean, normal people might have to have that kind of conversation, but Barney and Robin aren't exactly normal people. I mean this in a good way, of course. There wasn't quite enough Marshall for me, but I'm just so pleased that Jason Segel's cut his hair that I'm fine with what we got.

5) Criminal Minds (Wed, CBS): My heart beats only for SSA Spencer Reid, Ph.D., which is why I was pleased to see him be heroic in the CM premiere (even if it was only so he could get shot to explain Matthew Gray Gubler being on crutches due to his dislocated kneecap...ouch). They had a bit of a split narrative, working a case on just four hours of sleep after their horrific season finale case in Canada while wondering where team leader Hotch is. Turns out Hotch was stabbed a bunch by a serial killer that got away before, then dropped off at the hospital in an Elaborate Mind Game that will surely consume the season. Wonderful. Still won't stop me from watching, if only because I hope to see more of JJ with her Louisiana babydaddy and see what Paget Brewster does with her hair this season (are the bangs gone for good?!). I mean, those are the reasons people watch, right?

Other returning shows I'm keeping an eye on include Bones, Law & Order SVU, Law & Order, Numb3rs, and Lie to Me. I did watch The Mentalist's premiere, but I just can't get over my impression of Simon Baker as untrustworthy, and apparently everyone hates Robin Tunney's character? But I liked her (because she kicked Baker out of her car for being rude and childish, mostly). So...we'll see.

Shows I've given up since last season? House (too much melodrama, I can't stand House/Cuddy, not enough Cameron and too much Thirteen) and The Office (sorry, Jim and Pam, but I'm so sick of Michael, Dwight, and Andy that I can't give a crap about your wedding and baby and whatever else happened after episode...two? of last season). Also, fond as I am of Sylar, I haven't watched the Heroes premiere yet, and I'll probably wait a while before I do. Just don't feel like it.

Speaking of House (as I was under the cut), news broke yesterday of Jennifer Morrison (Cameron) being written out/leaving, which just sealed the deal for me -- I've officially broken up with the show. I don't care how good Hugh Laurie is or if he's found new ways to make House sympathetic (per Neal Justin, the Star Trib's TV critic), I JUST DON'T CARE. Also! USA Network has essentially killed Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Vincent D'Onofrio (Det. Bobby Goren) and Kathryn Erbe (Det. Alex Eames) are leaving after the season premiere, as is Eric Bogosian (Capt. Danny Ross). Julianne Nicholson (Det. Megan Wheeler) had previously decided not to return after having her second child, leaving Jeff Goldblum as the last man standing. He's apparently supposed to carry the show on his own, with new partner Saffron Burroughs (with whom I am Not Best Pleased). Now, I love Detective Nichols. I think bringing Goldblum in as, essentially, Detective Jeff Goldblum revived a flagging show that had become Law & Order: The Bacon Years, but I think Nichols is too quirky to pull off being the focus every week. It was nice to alternate weirdo Nichols with Goren, who had become sadly sluggish since his mother's death, and it was especially fun to watch Nichols and Eames together; I think Kathryn Erbe and Goldblum were a great team, and if D'Onofrio wanted out, they should've paired Eames and Nichols if the actors were amenable. If Erbe also wanted out, fine, but this big a casting shakeup reeks of Bureaucratic Asshaberdashery to me. The fact of the matter is this: Jeff Goldblum is a showkiller. Others have tried to rest a series on his shoulders and failed, miserably (see Raines). I don't think we'll be seeing L&O:CI in 2011. That's my prediction.

And that's that, if anyone made it this far. Being unemployed makes keeping up with television very, very easy. Imagine how much fun it would be to be a TV critic and get paid to watch TV! Maybe I ought to have some new career aspirations.

Fall TV: New series impressions

2009-09-26T23:07:00.002-05:00

I've tried out a few new shows in the fall lineup, with mixed results. See how they stack up below.

1) The Vampire Diaries (Thurs, CW): I kind of get the feeling that The Vampire Diaries is Twilight for people who thought there wasn't enough obsessive stalking in Stephenie Meyer's work. You've got the mysterious, brooding, self-hating vampire, ~~Edward~~ Stefan, and the brunette-for-TV (but blonde in the books, Wiki tells me) heroine, ~~Bella~~ Elena, in a small town. There's a Bad Vamp running around (HI ~~BOONE~~ IAN SOMERHALDER!) and the vamps can go out during the day without a) burning to a crisp a la True Blood or b) hilariously roasting a la Buffy (I distinctly remember Spike coming into the Summers' kitchen with a cloud of smoke surrounding him...and laughing hysterically). Only here, the whole reason Stefan's back in Mystic Falls (MYSTIC FALLS? REALLY?) is that Elena looks like his old flame, Katherine, from back in the Civil War era. Bella just waltzed into Edward's life, no fault of his (and he tried to run away, as I recall), but Elena is the entire reason Stefan came back, apparently at great risk to himself and his nephew/"uncle" with whom he lives. It's on the CW, so the mediocre writing and acting is par for the course, but I do genuinely enjoy Ian Somerhalder as Damon the Bad Vamp, who's clearly having a fabulous time being the oldest member of the cast and the villain to boot. It's like Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, but on a much, much, much smaller scale. There are some fun moments, like heavy mist creeping over the ground and crows smashing into windshields whenever Damon rolls in (or, as TV Guide puts it, "[the show] also features a special guest appearance by massive amounts of fog"), and Stefan just awkwardly hangin' at the doorjamb because Elena didn't specifically invite him in, but on the whole, I'll restrict my vampire TV to True Blood. I like my undead with a dash of humor, which VD is lacking. (And besides, my Thursday nights are kind of packed already.)

2) Community (Thurs, NBC): I'm a new member in the Joel McHale fanclub, having only seen The Soup a couple times, but he's really the main reason I decided to give Community a try. Yes, the commercial they ran all summer was funny (you can find a version is here), and I laughed every time Joel/Jeff rattled off his real/fake Spanish, but really? I tuned in because he's a tall, slim, good-looking man. So sue me. Joel plays Jeff Winger, a lawyer whose law license has been suspended because he has a less-than-legitimate undergrad degree from Colombia. That's Colombia, not Columbia. So now, enrolled at Greendale Community College, Jeff is completely uninterested in anything but getting his bachelor's degree with as little effor as possible, and as a result, is a total jerk in the way that most protagonists are. He invites Britta, the attractive blonde from his Spanish class, to a "study group" AKA one-on-one time in the library. Except Britta invites Abed, the awkward kid with Asperger syndrome. And then Shirley, Annie, Troy, and Pierce show up and all of a sudden, it's a real study group. Their antics and Jeff's determined efforts to get into Britta's pants are amusing enough that I'm planning to add it to my TV schedule, in the spot vacated by The Office. Plus, it's got Ken Jeong (AKA the Asian doctor from Knocked Up and the king from the LARP in Role Models) as Señor Chang, the Spanish teacher. There are some painfully awkward moments, but nothing as bad as what we've seen on The Office. I'd recommend watching the pilot, which you can find on CommunityHulu.

3) Eastwick (Wed, ABC): Hoo, boy. So, I saw that Eastwick was available on Hulu, and figured, "Why not?" The series is (I suspect very loosely) based on the John Updike novel The Witches of Eastwick, later adapted into a film starring Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Rebecca Romijn, Lindsay Price, and some other woman I've never seen before are the sekrit underground witches (who aren't aware they're witches, by the by) in this updated version. Romijn is Roxie, the boho artist sleeping with a younger man (who, incidentally, does have a belly button); Price is Johanna, the uptight journalist (glasses, hair in a bun, etc.) pining after the hot photographer coworker; whats-her-face is Kat, the nurse/mother of five with a loser husband. SO they all wish for big changes in their lives and then some super-rich dude rolls in and basically makes everything they wish for come true. Roxie dreams the future, Johanna can make men do whatever she wants, and Kat is Natural Disaster Girl (earthquakes, lightning strikes, etc.). Now that I think about it, not much happened in the pilot...huh. Anyway, the acting's not as horrible as I expected and they seem to be aware of how ridiculous the show is -- and they're having fun with it. Plus, the super-rich, possibly evil dude, Daryl (the Mountie from Due South, if anybody else watched that), is hilarious. I might watch it again if I've got more knitting to do -- it's a good halfway-paying-attention kind of show.

4) FlashForward (Thurs, ABC): Oh, man. Provided it survives its first season, I think FlashForward has the potential to become my new Lost. That might be jinxing it, but I really liked the first episode. There are more British actors than you can shake a stick at (Joseph Fiennes, Sonia Walger [AKA Penny Widmore/Hume of Lost], Alex Kingston [AKA Professor River Song of Doctor Who, and Jack Davenport [Commodore Norrington!], plus I hear Dominic Monaghan is supposed to show up, too), but the American talent is what pulled me in: John Cho, who I loved in a completely un-platonic way as Sulu in Star Trek this summer, and Courtney B. Vance, who I still miss as ADA Ron Carver on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, were the familiar faces in the commercial that made me seek out the premiere. What I was completely unprepared to see was Seth MacFarlane (yes, Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy), in a totally un-comedic role as one of the FBI agents (I may have had an outburst on Twitter when he showed up on screen). I also recognized Gabrielle Cortese, late of Supernatural, but she was so awful in an already mediocre show that I'm glad her character is supposedly dead at the beginning of the show. Whether or not she's actually dead is of little consequence when you're faced with FBI AGENT JOHN CHO, GUYS. Seriously, he spends most of the episode in a flak jacket and bloody with his gun drawn, menacing a suspected (female) terrorist. Dear ABC: You know what you're doing, don't you? The premise of the show is this: everyone on the planet blacked out for the same two minutes and fourteen seconds, simultaneously, and for those two minutes and change, their consciousnesses jumped forward six months to April 2010 and they had a flash of their lives in the future. Well, everyone but poor Agent Demetri Noh (John Cho), who didn't see anything, and is afraid it's because he'll be dead in six months. FBI Agent Mark Benford (Fiennes), a recovering alcoholic, sees himself investigating the flashforward and drinking again. His wife, Olivia (Walger), an ER doctor, sees herself with another man (Jack Davenport), who is apparently the father of a little boy she saves during the first episode. My favorite of the flashes was Stan Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance), the FBI boss who tells Benford and Noh that he saw himself "in a meeting," which is apparently code for "taking a dump while reading the newspaper." The cause of the blackouts is a mystery, as is the lone ~~OMGWTFPOLARBEAR~~ kangaroo hopping down the streets of Los Angeles immediately after the blackouts, but the FBI, while looking through security camera footage from around the world, finds one man in a baseball stadium who was awake for those two minutes -- apparently the only person in the world who didn't lose consciousness. I'm super-intrigued by the whole premise of the show; it reminds me a lot of the first season of Lost, when we were still discovering the mysteries and mythology, and the questions were still relatively simple. I have a good feeling about this show, in part because the creators are David S. Goyer (who co-wrote the story for The Dark Knight) and Brannon Braga (of Star Trek: The Next Generation), but also because they've got a good cast and the strength of the story itself (based on a 1999 novel by Robert J. Sawyer) driving it. The script was good, the acting was good, and the action was well-executed and pushed from beginning to end. They even managed to introduce what I suspect will become the central theme of the show: are these flashforwards glimpses of the inevitable, or can these characters change the futures they saw? It should be interesting to see how the story unfolds and how the show's 13 episodes will be structured in terms of reaching the April 2010 date seen in the flashes. I'm putting it in the rotation of my regular shows.

Other series I'll probably give a chance are The Good Wife (Tues, CBS), Trauma (Mon 9/28, NBC) and V (Tues 11/3, ABC) -- the latter mostly because of Elizabeth Mitchell, who will always be HBIC Juliet Burke to me, but also for Morena Baccarin, AKA Firefly's Inara.

Don't touch that remote--I'll talk about some returning series after this commercial break.