BLOGS
December 2007 Archives
How merrily we read theeeeeeee. Critics all around the internet have compiled their bests and worsts for 2007, including Alan Sepinwall's Festivus dishonor roll; Poniewozik's worst of '07 and Top 10 shows that didn't crack the Top 10 (at least, I think that's the deal here...the presence of Dexter would seem to indicate that); and Maureen Ryan's low points of '07 (you can get to her best and worst lists from that entry).
No matter whose list you're reading, you'll start to see some themes emerge in the dubious-distinction end of things: the WGA strike; the decline of Entourage; the fact that Viva Laughlin was so bad that it was too obvious to list. The theme that always emerges for me as I peruse these lists is how much TV I've forgotten even happened in the calendar year in question -- wasn't Sanjaya from Idol '05? Didn't Top Chef 2 air two summers ago?
And aren't Tila's boobs going to pop if she keeps mooshing them together that hard?
The SAG Award nominations have come out; nothing hugely troublesome or scandalous, but I do have a handful of quibbles, starting with Sally Field. Field does a great job as Nora Walker on Brothers & Sisters, but it's an ensemble show, yet Field still gets all the lead-actress noms, it seems like, and Rachel Griffiths gets overlooked. And again, Field isn't bad or anything, but she's working with prime Emmy bait, and she's hardly subtle; I kind of don't get it. I also don't get the Sedgwick lovefest; I like her too, usually, and I like the show well enough, but that Closer role is tic-y as all get out, and the portrayal isn't getting any less hectic as time goes on. Do these academies just want to prove that they watch basic cable?
And of course Jeremy Piven gets another nod for the Ari role on Entourage, and Tony Shalhoub another nom for Monk, both of which we can file under "I" for "it worked for a couple of seasons because we hadn't seen that sort of thing before, but we get it now, and you haven't shown us anything new in a few years." Actors can continue to do good work in the same role year after year, of course, and it's another two actors I like very much, but when you keep seeing Spader's name in these lists, and Hugh Laurie, just the same people over and over with only a couple minor variations each year, it's hard not to feel like there's a certain laziness behind it. "Well, I don't watch Saving Grace, but the critics say Holly Hunter is very good in it." "Well, Laurie's doing twice the work because of the accent, so I'll just nominate him." Hugh Laurie's still entertaining as Greg House, but he's not doing anything we haven't seen him do before -- and even if these same guys really are the best TV had to offer in the last year, acting-wise, it's hard to trust that when we've seen them all before.
Damien Echols will appear tonight on Larry King Live -- not in the studio, alas, but evidently the show is sending a camera team to death row, where Echols is still incarcerated.
For those of you not familiar with the case, you can read about it here, but better than that, I'd recommend renting the documentaries, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hills and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, both of which I believe aired originally on HBO. (You can get either/both from Netflix.) Recently, DNA evidence has come to light that may change the circumstances of all three defendants, so the interview with King could provide some new information for followers of the case.
...of episodes, that is. No new Project Runway until 2008, which is giving me serious withdrawal pains. Thank God for reruns, and for the fine feathered forum member who tipped us to Jay McCarroll's Project Runway blog for Elle. The lack of caps and overly casual attitude towards apostrophes is somewhat aggravating, but if you can acclimate yourself to it, you'll find that Jay's voice comes right through -- and is bitchy but fair, just like I remember Jay from his time on the show. In one recent entry, he compares Heidi Klum to his high school band director, who smelled like cucumbers; says Christian reminds him of Jerri Blank; and shares how he would have tackled the Tiki challenge: "i personally would have used this opportunity to get back at all of the football players who picked on me in high school. these models be walkin’ down the runway in white spandex bodysuits and hot pink assless chaps with ruffles and crystals and a rainbow flag and a pair of ugg boots and a sheep." Hee. It's the Ugg detail that makes it.
Anyway, it's a great addition to the PR coverage around the blogosphere, much franker than most of the Bravo blogs, although it doesn't begin to fill the void left by the end of Tim's podcasts. BRING BACK TIM'S DAMN PODCASTS!
(Also: if you're casting about for a last-minute gift for the PR fan in your life, Jay's bowling bags are for sale at FredFlare.com. Supplies are limited but check it out.)
[TWoP bullpen, afternoon. The subject under discussion: whether anyone on the editorial board besides Sars will admit planning to watch the next edition of The Apprentice, which "stars" such lesser lights as Marilu Henner, Tiffany Fallon, and a member of a famous acting family.]
Sars: "You know -- that Baldwin who isn't the fat one. ...Sorry, who used to not be the fat one, but now is."
Wing Chun: "They're all the fat one now."
Which is annoying. Ten years ago you could keep them all straight: the fat one (Daniel), the hairy one (Billy), Alec (Alec), and the other one (Stephen). Now it's Alec and...all the other fat ones. And Adam, who is 1) no relation and 2) not fat.
Speaking of the famous original fat one, Daniel, pictured above, I've started DVRing Homicide: Life on the Street on Sleuth. I love the show, but some of the reruns, I love...less. The "Bayliss pitches a hissy about his bi/Zen/cop website" era is not my favorite, and I never hated the guy as much as some, but shut up, Falzone.
I think we all can agree, having watched America's Next Top Model for 49 cycles now, that what makes a top model in the Tyraverse is not any of the model-esque qualities you might assume are prerequisites -- superior height, facial symmetry, a runway walk not copied from Peter Boyle's performance in Young Frankenstein -- but rather the "desire," the "really wanting this"-ness. By which of course I mean the undignified, and un-optional, coating of Tyra's giant ass in damp kisses, the better to evolve Tyra's delusion of herself as a benign (and gigantic) Henrietta Higgins who Does Good For People. A girl's real-world modeling potential is irrelevant here -- fortunately, since few of the contestants have any such thing, which, naturally, is why they get onto the show in the first place. Nobody with a snowball's chance in hell of getting work in the industry on her own is as pathetically grateful for the faux-pportunities offered by ANTM (for real, the Seventeen readership's age tops out at around 13), and it's that pathetic gratitude that Tyra requires.
Tyra has gotten more and more obnoxiously imperious in the last year or two, but her fucktardedly outsized sense of her own importance isn't a problem per se -- at least, not compared with the problem it must pose for her employees. What is a problem, from a television standpoint, is that that grandiose insistence on choosing the girl who thanks/beseeches/admires Tyra the most fervently, instead of the girl who's the best qualified (or, you know, qualified at all), voids the competition of any significance. Tyra doesn't think we notice it, I suspect; Tyra doesn't see, or is not hearing anyone who tries to tell her, that the motives behind her choices are increasingly obvious.
So I was just watching a day-long marathon of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency (shut up, you're not better than me), and holy crap, you guys: they are still running ads for Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds fragrance. In 2007. That very same ad you remember, too, with Liz in the dyed-black hair helmet, dropping in on that weird last-outpost-of-society poker match, dropping her diamond earrings onto the table and purring, "These have always brought me luck." Like...what is she doing there, on this remote airstrip in outer Off-the-grid-istan? And why is she giving this obvious ripoff of Frisco Jones from General Hospital diamonds to gamble with? Isn't she worried she'll end up accidentally funding the Sandinistas or something?
Digressions aside, I cannot believe...well, I cannot believe anyone's still buying White Diamonds, but I also cannot believe that this is still the ad they use to sell it. Wendy's isn't still running Clara Peller hollering "Where's the beef?" are they?
Also: Who are they kidding, really? We've seen Elizabeth Taylor this decade: doddering around on the Golden Globes stage with an envelope shrieking "GLADIATOR!"; showing up to public events on the arm of Michael Jackson looking even freakier than he does; whatever the hell that "Maaaarried? AAOOOOO!" soundbite was all about. Nobody wants to smell like Crazy Great-Grandma, White Diamonds people. Pack it in, or name a successor.
1. Once And Again, Everwood, Queer As Folk (U.K. version), Battlestar Galactica, Third Watch
2. Dawson's Creek, ER, Ally McBeal, Friday Night Lights, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Heroes, Lost
3. Jericho, Smallville, Everwood, Heroes, The Real World
4. Tru Calling, Ed, Law & Order: SVU
5. Boomtown, Roswell, Felicity
Offer your answers here. We'll tell you tomorrow.
If you felt bad about missing last night's premiere of Paranormal State: don't. It's a terrible show -- boring, overly invested in the Catholic Church as a blanket solution to all paranormal problems, and unable to marshal and explain evidence of hauntings in a convincing way.
Plus, nobody gives a damn about Ryan's alleged "and so we meet again, demon whose name I drama-queenily refuse to let anyone utter aloud...except when I am too busy narrating the show from inside a giant tin can, or using my eyebrows to prompt my psychologist friend to 'feel faint' in the 'presence' of an 'evil' 'spirit,' or wearing my slacks too high" backstory. We tuned in to see if you could find ghosts; if you can't find any, fine, but at least try instead of pantsing around with the holy water. Thermal imaging! Digital tape read-back! Anyone who has read even a page of Hans Holzer knows that this is how it's done! If I, a ghost-story addict, think your show is flaky, you have no chance of impressing anyone else!
Don't bother with it; I wish I hadn't. Catch a rerun of Unsolved Mysteries instead, or hop on over to Weird NJ.com; much spookier, much less with the "the power of Ryan compels you!" dramatics.
Anyone else watch Cool As Ice on HBO2 yesterday? Show of hands. …Nobody else? Not even a few minutes, just to see if it's as bad as you've always suspected?
I don't blame y'all for not admitting it even if you did watch it, but…I sat through the last half hour, just to see if it's as bad as I'd always suspected. And it absolutely is. It's terrible. What's surprising is how apparently not terrible the script must have seemed, because in addition to non-master non-thespian Vanilla Ice, the cast features such TV luminaries as Deezer D (Malik from ER), Kristin Minter as the love interest (also an ER alum -- she played cranky desk clerk Randi, and she's unrecognizable as such in CAI, to the point where I thought it was actually Jennifer Connelly), Jack McGee (late of Rescue Me), and Michael "Steven Keaton" Gross. Who also had an ER turn, now that I think of it, as Carter pere, but is cast here as Minter's father, and I have to give him credit -- it must have dawned on him relatively early in the filming that he'd signed onto a complete stinker, but he gives a hundred percent in all his scenes.
But spotting TV's lesser lights trying to make the mortgage is just about the only amusement offered by the movie, ostensibly a remake of/homage to Rebel Without A Cause that showcases the nadir of high-waisted-denim/floofy perm fashion, as the shoulder-pads-and-neon late '80s transitioned into the equally hideous rayon-pirate-shirts-and-flannel early '90s. Vanilla himself is attired in the worst the era had to offer -- hugely oversized leather jacket with custom appliqués; checkerboard shaved into the back of his head; douchily angled baseball cap; ska shorts -- and cannot act even a little, but in some shots, you can see how he put his whole deal over, because even though he's dressed like a David Silver Edition Ken Doll and accessorized with a bright-yellow crotch rocket, he's still handsome. Cheesy, but handsome.
And he seemed like an okay guy on Celebrity Bull Riding, at least compared to that asshat Nitro.
It happened a month ago, so no doubt everyone else has already processed the "Gary Anthony Ramsay spazzes off on a NY1 call-in show, then quits/gets fired from the channel" story and moved on, but I just caught wind of it last week, and...wow.
New Yorkers (well, the ones who have Time Warner cable) have a relationship with NY1 -- as though it's a person. A family member, sort of, in the sense that nobody is like, "I LOVE that station!", but it's around all the time and you need it, in a way, and when it's gone, you miss it. When I lived way out in Brooklyn, outside the Time Warner Cable service area, I had satellite cable -- and Time Warner is NY1's parent, so, no NY1. Then I moved further in, closer to downtown, and got hooked back up with Time Warner, and of course the installer did his remote test on NY1 and the minute it came up onscreen I yelled out, "Lewis!" Lewis Dodley is a pro, man. He's such a great reader: "My mustache and I are interested in -- but, because we are professionals, not surprised by -- the story we are about to share, sonorously, with you."
You start out not even watching watching the station; you just put it on because it has the temperature bug in the bottom left corner all the time, and you want to know if you need a jean jacket. But...then it's on, and then it's on some more, and you form bonds with it, with the segments and the anchors, like when Kristen Shaughnessy was growing her hair out and every woman in the city was like, "Hooooo, that's tough." Or when Annika Pergament showed up on a Sopranos episode in the first season; it put a badge of tri-state authenticity on the show's lapel. And when you're talking about gi-GANTIC eyebrows, for a national audience you go with a Scorsese joke...but for the locals, you use George Whipple. (Awesomely, in the staff profile page I've linked to, said brows wiggle Flash-ily. Hee.)
So, it's weird to know Ramsay's off the air. He wasn't my favorite anchor; that honor goes to the delightful Pat Kiernan, who does "In The Papers" and mods The World Series Of Pop Culture. I met him once, when I was a researcher on a pilot, and he's just as lovely in person; he even emailed the next day to thank me and the writer on our three-man team for our help, which he didn't have to do. But Ramsay has been part of the cultural landscape around here for a long time, him and his businesslike flat-top. It's probably one of those stories that, outside the catchment area, nobody will care much about, but for the locals, it's distressing.
Not so distressing that I'll stop doing my Neil Rosen imitation, though. "Because what he actually did just wasn't that big a deal in the end...out of a possible five apples...I'm going to give Gary Anthony Ramsay's departure...only one apple." Hee.
Anyway. Good luck, Gary! Thanks for all the headlines.
So, last night's CSI. Maybe it's because I have a sinus infection, which is giving information a hell of a time penetrating my skull to my brain for processing, but...what was that?
The show is just so...off, lately. I've really enjoyed it the last few seasons, but it's really not doing it for me this year, and it's strange, because I have to tell you, I'd looked forward to Sara Sidle's departure for weeks -- could not wait for her to git gone. I really liked Jorja Fox on ER, back in the day, and while I didn't have nearly the level of investment in the Gil/Sara romance that some did -- which is to say that I had none, and sort of thought less of Gil for rewarding all her moping and DUI-ing by finally responding to it -- I actually didn't mind it onscreen, and though Petersen played it well. But Sara had slowly devolved into a collection of mannered line readings, pissy glowering, and inexplicable tonsorial choices (what in the Sam Hill was that late-era-Brady Flo Henderson 'do from a couple seasons ago? And do they not have hot oils in Los Angeles?), and when I read that Fox would be leaving, I was really glad. The character had gotten tired, she'd gotten tired of the character, it showed -- good call.
But since she's left, the show doesn't hang together quite right. I'm all for a Hodges-centric episode now and then, because his relationship with Gil is unique and fun to watch, but that means a Liz-Vassey-centric episode also, usually, and they write her so annoyingly that it takes all the fun out of it.
And then there's this nonsense with Warrick. Sobell used to have a running gag in her CSI recaps about Warrick's semi-permanent residence in the subplot sub-basement, and it has always seemed like Dourdan is underused, particularly when you think about how many Catherine/Sam Braun subplots we had to sit through over the years -- but, you know, the guy has a gambling addiction, and then he gets over it, and then when he mentions gambling, it's kind of hard to tell whether the writers actually remember that. And he gets quickie-married, but then the divorce is taking seventeen times as long as the entire courtship and marriage combined, and we have no reason to care except that it's a device to gin up his drug addiction, and then poor George Eads has to play this Lifetime-y Randolph Mantears scene last night all, "So you're taking uppers AND downers MY GOD MAN LOOK AT YOURSELF"? He actually said that shit, first of all, just in a different order and without the "MY GOD MAN" part, and second of all, who calls them "uppers" anymore? Who wrote that scene, Jim Bouton? And third of all, with the...throwing them in the trash? And Warrick's like, "Good point"? And...they look at some evidence, and...scene?
This isn't even mentioning the weird Oliver-Stone-esque seduction sequence, which may or may not have been a withdrawal nightmare -- I think it was, but it was so stagey and overly drawn out, I couldn't really tell, and "confusing" and "ambiguous" aren't the same things, creatively. Dourdan did his best with the material; I don't envy him having to play that last scene. And at least they got him out of his shirt. It's just way too much, too late for the character. I don't think people watch the show for this sort of soapy Emmy-bait stuff, and if you want to foreground a character who's historically been neglected, you need to do it more gradually.
In short: I see what they were trying to do...I think. But if I'm right, it didn't work, and if I'm wrong, it's a total mess.
Remember when ER was a good show? Like, a very good show? I barely do, but looking at some of the clips from the early entries in Alan Sepinwall's list of disasters (see the basic column, somewhere between depressing and uproariously funny, here) reminded me. The end of that Clooney clip from "Hell Or High Water," where he's saving the kid from the storm drain, is, in my opinion, the moment when his current position in the culture was foretold. They knew what they were doing with that shot of him coming out of the water into the spotlight. I haven't watched the show in years, and frankly, I cannot rewatch the scene where Carter and Lucy get stabbed, because it was horrible enough the first time, and I remember how just reading that recap (not actually that recap; the next recap, which is what the link goes to) made me cry, so I choose not to put myself through it. Maybe you are made of sterner stuff.
There's very, very little that could convince me to watch the second season of Top Design. Very, very little.But you know what might? News that it's now going to be worked on by Magical Elves, the production company behind Project Runway and Top Chef. Frankly, this is what Bravo should have done in the first place, and it's too bad it took a season of total crapola to figure out that you can't just call it Top Whatever and have people care; it's the actual talent attached to the great project that makes it great. I do give them credit, however, for getting the right people on the case before it was absolutely and completely too late to rescue the franchise. As bad as Top Design was, it's not like a show called Top Design operating on that concept can't work. But it needs to be done really, really differently, and with any luck, Magical Elves will make everything better for all of us, just like the storybooks say.
And I will totally watch a second season of Shear Genius. I won't be proud of it, but I'll do it.
...Not really. Dunbar cheating on his girlfriend with Ashbob Squareface is not exactly the shocking plot twist of the year. But it could get interesting if Julie reacts to her on-air cuckolding the way I hope she will, to wit: dropping a taser down the front of his sweatshorts and pushing him into a swimming pool, then marching into the house and flushing all his steroids down the toilet. Free Julie!
Even crazier than that, though: Kelly Anne. Between Shauvon's boyfriend, Captain Controllo, demanding that she come back to the States pronto and Trisha's stripper weave attacking Parisa, we haven't had many episodes lately that focused on Kelly Anne's pathological neediness -- but even though last night's didn't exactly focus on it, it showed it off to disturbing effect. First she's spitting in Parisa's direction; then she's getting a lecture from her new BFF Ashli about how she should interact with Parisa, even though Ashli has lived in the house for all of 12 minutes; then she's, like, PAWING Parisa in the hot tub while Parisa semi-leans away from her all "I...didn't miss this, actually." Keh-RAZY!
It's like Kelly Anne doesn't know how, or who, to be if someone else doesn't tell her, or if she can't see herself reflected in people around her, and it's really just to an insane degree with her; she seems like a sweet person, at bottom, but that's got to be exhausting to live with.
I'm relieved to read that Alan Sepinwall feels the same way I do about Heroes at this point -- namely that he's about done with it: "I have a feeling I'll wind up tuning into 'Heroes' volume 3, whenever it debuts, but I won't be happy with myself for doing it."
Exactly. I want to love the show, and it does certain things well -- not least sensing somehow when I'm about to get truly fed up and kick it off the DVR, then coming across with an exciting, touching episode in the nick of time -- but it just does them too slowly. The Hiro/Kensei plot dragged on too long initially, then wrapped up a bit too quickly on the Adam end. The Maya/Alejandro characters served no purpose that I can see, other than to 1) keep Sylar treading water onscreen until the writers could contrive his return to New York, and 2) bug the holy hell out of the majority of the audience with Maya's wide-eyed, breathy whining and black-eye-gunking. The Monica character, same problem -- cool enough power, but didn't move the ball forward, and in the climactic scene, she...didn't even use her power. I have zero issue with Niki getting killed off -- I've never liked her -- but they should have found another way.
I love the Bennets (including Mr. Muggles), I love Ando because he says what any of us would in the same situations, I love seeing Tobolowsky on my screen every week, and I'm that lone contrarian who likes Parkman; I see enough Sean Blumberg in him that I still have hope. But I had many of the same issues with Lost -- the writers didn't seem to have a plan; the pacing was inconsistent at best; the episodes tended to focus on characters (Kate, mostly) I didn't care for; I gave it two seasons, it didn't pay off, and I booted it off the season-pass list and have never regretted it.
I'm willing to concede that, as Sepinwall mentions, this season of Heroes may have been timed oddly because of the looming strike, but that only explains the rushed quality at the end, not the lethally slow (and repetitive) episodes at the start of the season. Writing series TV isn't easy, God knows, but if you know you have 22 episodes and you know you have a certain arc you want to complete, it does seem like you might write to that task a bit better, and not make the same mistakes you made pacing-wise in the previous season.
But I'm getting the feeling that this is...just how the show is. Overly laborious set-ups; occasional sparks/twists in the middle; unsatisfying payoffs; too much focus on certain characters while others stay out of sight for episodes at a time. If you're going to kill off a Petrelli, you kill Peter, not Nathan, my God. Peter is self-righteous and super-slow on the uptake, for starters, and for another thing, and Adrian Pasdar is the man. Put that guy in a "you killed my brother, prepare to die" vengeance subplot and you're going to be cooking with gas all season long. Put Ventimiglia in the same one, and...not so much. He tries really hard, and he looks good with his shirt off, but he's not a nuanced actor, and if the pacing is going to be this slow, I need something else to interest me. He doesn't qualify.
It's so CLOSE, the show, which is why it's so frustrating, but when it comes back, it's got three episodes to show me it's learned its lesson, and then I'm out.
Today is the first official day of my project in which I decide whether I want to pick up a soap again. I haven't watched one since...er...I was in college? Probably? I watched General Hospital during the Frisco years and Days Of Our Lives during the Patch/Kayla years, mostly. So basically, the youngsters on these shows now are often the children of the characters I grew up watching, although I have been utterly shocked at the number of people who were still supposed to be important who were important when I was watching last time. So, somewhere between fifteen and twenty years after the last time I watched regularly, just in time to be tormented by the interruption/scabbing issues of the writers' strike, I have decided to experiment. I will not use cheat sheets; I will simply try to figure out what the hell is going on and whether I want to try one again. First up: I try to revisit Days Of Our Lives.
I'm not a Dexter viewer myself; maybe someone else knows better than I do, but I find it hard to understand how they're going to edit it to be appropriate for broadcast on CBS. It has always appeared to me that the entire show was, in tone, simply not suited for network broadcast. I guess we'll find out how badly it has to be butchered. I will admit that if there is one teeny, tiny, minuscule silver lining in the wretched strike situation, it might be that a network desperate for something to air might give something a chance to find an audience that otherwise wouldn't. Not with scab writers (because: gross), but with things like this that have already been aired but not seen very much. What if NBC decided, once the strike was in full swing, to run the first season of Friday Night Lights as a week-long miniseries? I don't know that The Wire can be made to fit, but you never know what's possible.It's better than another season of Big Brother, which I can't even bring myself to discuss, it's so gross.