The 2007-2008 Caruso Awards (The Bad)

First I hit you all up with the shiny side of my two-headed coin, compelling me to give up much love to those shows that made my heart soar this last year, but now that coin has landed on its nasty scarred side, and I am forced by my innate sense of cosmic balance to point my finger at those hours of TV that offended unto my very core. That pain, so crippling to me, must be expunged somehow, and this list is my preferred method of self-exorcism. Please indulge me while I carp.

10. Lost - Ji Yeon

It gives me zero pleasure to put an episode of Lost on this list, especially one that featured a wonderful and emotionally exhausting performance from Yunjin Kim, but there is no getting past the fact that the entire episode is based around a silly narrative trick employed merely to distract the audience enough to bring out a big shock at the end. Being well made and well acted is not enough, as rewatching this episode has shown how empty that flashback/forward trick is. While Lost has certainly messed around with the audience before, using our expectation against us as a judo wrestler uses the weight of the opponent against him/her, this episode was blatantly a big nothing wrapped in a trick bow. To add insult to injury, the other big shock of the episode was the reveal of Michael as the Kahana crewmember doing Ben's bidding. As Harold Perrineau's name had been in the credits all season without him appearing once, no one could possibly have been fooled.

9. Dexter - See-Through

There are many things that mystify us, but the critical and popular success of Dexter is high up on the list of most baffling events ever. Watching the second season has taken us almost a year, with each new episode annoying us so much we decide against watching any further and yet are forced to struggle on just to clear space on the Sky+ box. Sometimes all it takes to piss us off is the first couple of lines of each episode's voiceover, which removes all subtlety from the show and in its place gives us some cringeworthy psychological drivel that could only come from the mind of someone who has done nothing but read bad crime novels their whole life. No other "quality" cable show on TV has so little respect for the audience, drowning out all thought or interpretation with a barrage of exposition, moralising, and primary-school level philosophical meanderings. Dexter is perhaps the least mysterious and most predictable character on TV, which makes following his adventures utterly tiresome.

To make things worse, though we suspect that removing that redundant voiceover would significantly improve the show, even then it would still have some of the most unappealing characters on TV. Grumpy Doakes the Grumpy Grumpy Cop, the vile worm Masuka (whose dialogue is a series of variations on, "I'd buy that for a dollar!!!"), Dexter's relentlessly aggressive sister Debra, the hapless Secret-loving Angel, duplicious Rosie-Perez-voice-clone LaGuerta, Rita the constantly peeved girlfriend; I appreciate that there is much to be made of including unlikeable characters in a show (some of our favourites are littered with unpleasant people), but these aren't interesting character studies. They're just a bunch of annoying jerks, all of whom are as boring as sand. So why choose this episode? Because it introduced another show Gupta (Rita's horrible mom, a caricature of a meddling mother), and cemented our dislike of Dexter's Narcotics Anonymous sponsor Lila, a Manic Pixie Dream Girl with a criminal mind and an over-enunciation habit. I'll get to her soon, time permitting.

8. Heroes - Cautionary Tales

In other internet venues, SoC contributor Masticator has plowed a lonely furrow, arguing that the second season of Heroes, which had attracted so much vitriol, was about the same as the first season, quality-wise, if a little worse for not having a stand-out episode like Company Man, which featured highly in last year's Caruso Awards. While I've already railed against the show for having a very disappointing sophomore season, I'm not sure I articulated it fully. It can be summed up like this; all of the suspicions I had that the boldness of the storytelling masked a deeply stupid, derivative concept and some equally shaky execution were confirmed in the second season, which not only failed to deliver on the promise of the first season, but damaged it terribly by shooting off in different directions, none of which were particularly interesting, all the while doing very little to entertain (for a show about superheroes, no one did anything superheroic except for DL). The occasionally histrionic performances ran riot, characters died like punks for no apparent narrative or logical reason (RIP DL, the true hero!!!), allegiances changed over and over again (what the hell is Suresh thinking from scene to scene, let alone episode to episode?), and so much endless, formless, pointless dialogue poured from our TV that by the midpoint of the strike-truncated season I had completely lost the thread of what was going on.


I'm no dummy, but I honestly had no clue what was happening by the final few episodes. Motives were explained so sketchily that I felt like giving up on the whole thing numerous times. All of this is before we get to the other, well-trodden complaints about the season; Hiro's ridiculous Japanese adventures, the wasted new characters, the similarities between the big arcs of this season and last season, the Hoirish Ghangsturrs frrrrrom Cork don't yer know begorrah, and the inability of the showrunners to capitalise on the strengths of the cast (especially Adrian Pasdar, whose saltiness was a refreshing change from all of the portentous performances from everyone else). The badness was spread so thinly across the whole season that picking the worst episode is hard, so I've plumped for this one, partially because it was so memorably over the top (that over-director Greg Yaitanes again), but mostly because the gulf between the epic ambitions of the showrunners and the silly, undramatic, kinda ridiculous end product is made glaringly apparent here. It was a fun episode to watch, but it broke the show for us. Masticator may be right. The second season might not be that much worse than the first season. The problem is, as I said at the time, the first season hinted that, once it had found its footing, the show might have been brain-fodder as well as nerd-fodder. After this episode aired, I gave up that dream and figured it would be CSI: Miami with metahumans. Which is fun in its own right, but still a disappointment.

7. Doctor Who - Voyage Of The Damned

Thus far every season of the New Who has had a stinker at some point, an episode of depressing stupidity that taints the whole run. The latest season, number four, was mediocre at worst, with the Sontaran two-parter representing the season's nadir (unless you are Masticator and have an aversion to adorable little creatures made of fat). That was merely boring, a crime that is forgivable when Who usually has so much enjoyable energy to spare. However, Who season four merely dodged a bullet; there was a truly dreadful episode aired prior to that season, and it was watched by a huge portion of the British viewing public. Russell T Davies' Christmas special was an indulgent abomination, with the stunt-casting of the mysteriously popular Kylie, who killed every single one of her lines, being only one of a number of egregious failings. If the repeated angelic and messianic metaphors weren't enough to wreck the show, the hammy performances were. Guest actor Clive Swift got lucky, though. His teeth-grating and florid line-readings would have been the worst thing about the entire regrettable endeavour if RTD hadn't thought it a wizard idea to have the Queen running around Buckingham Palace in robe and slippers. It almost made me a Monarchist out of sympathy. The disastrous exercise in condescension was almost Torchwoodian in its dedication to barrel-scraping.

6. Chuck - Chuck Versus the Truth

The titling conceit on Chuck is that each week, faux-nerd Chuck is put in opposition to something. It's a semi-comedic method of naming the episode, as mannered as Seinfeld's simple The [Something] titles, or Friends' The One With [The Something]. This episode, which I again had stern words about earlier, was the only time in the first season Chuck went up against a concept, though sadly it wasn't the right one. Perhaps Chuck Vs. The Patience of the Audience would have been more accurate. Riddled with the usual uncertain performances, re-re-rehashed plots, poorly filmed action, and flat dialogue, this installment compounded those Chuckian standards with some egregious plot errors so glaring that the entire crew must have been asleep while filming to have not noticed it. If NBC's cancellation of Journeyman wasn't already galling enough, the renewal of this vapid atonal tripe is salt in the wound. Perhaps this is more entertaining than a broken TV, but surely only because Adam Baldwin is in it. Even with his talent involved, Chuck is an insult to pop culture itself.

5. Dirty Sexy Money - The Italian Banker

An expensive, major network show with a starry cast, lots of promotion, and a writing staff that included writers from Six Feet Under, Lost, and Veronica Mars, this should have been a home run, but alarms were ringing after the pilot ran on the spot for 42 minutes with no character, line of dialogue, or event generating enough energy to imprint itself on my memory. It didn't get any better. As my previous comments have shown, the writing was pitched at a mid-afternoon soap level, with only the production values and relentless winking of the actors to differentiate it from The Bold and the Beautiful. While Ugly Betty (when operating at full power) perfectly understands how to satirise trashy soap stylings while revelling in their excesses, Dirty Sexy Money didn't seem to have a handle on how to maintain a consistent tone. Switching from fluffy to dramatic with a grinding of narrative gears is bad enough, but there was nothing else going on to distract the viewer from this clumsiness. This episode was only marginally worse than all of the others, thanks to some startlingly bad dialogue, worn out plot threads from numerous other shows and films, and obsequious product placement for Bulgari, but the entire show was flawed from conception.

4. Ugly Betty - Giving Up The Ghost

Debate has raged between the contributors to this blog as to which Ugly Betty episode was the weakest. Masticator and Canyon have maintained that the Wicked advert called Something Wicked This Way Comes was the worst, and given that that despicable nonsense insulted Ray Bradbury with its name, I very seriously considered adding it to the list. However, the painful memories of Giving Up The Ghost are still raw, so I'll have to plump for it. Featuring the same kinds of broad caricature, feeble dialogue, scenery-chewing performances, cliche-strewn plots, and misunderstanding of tone as your average episode of Dirty Sexy Money (a crime considering Ugly Betty usually gets the tone spot-on), it also included a career-worst guest appearance by Eliza Dushku, and brought about the necessary but frustrating separation of Wilhelmina from the Mode offices. That, in turn, split Marc from Amanda, which meant the show suddenly felt like The Venture Brothers without Brock Samson, or 30 Rock without Jack Donaghy. In one fell swoop the episode killed the funny for weeks to come, crippling the show during the latter half of the season. All of these events were overturned eventually, but the ratio of good to bad episodes was in the negative from then on.

3. Bionic Woman - Sisterhood

Oh God, where to begin? I've bitched about many shows here that are often good but had a bad week, or shows that might have seemed promising upon conception but never really gelled once shooting began, or shows that couldn't back up their lofty ambitions, but Bionical Woman represents that rarity in the new Golden Age of TV; an out and out disaster from conception onwards. Nothing, and I mean nothing, about this show worked. The concept, hinting at modern self-awareness and littered with unconvincing tech-speak about such bleeding edge concepts as nanotechnology (ooooOOOOoooohhhh! So futuristical!), was still ridiculous in the way that only 70s sci fi TV can be, and all attempts to update the original show regularly misfired. With the sci fi hook malfunctioning, there was no hope for it anyway, but the poorly sketched mythology, miscasting, lacklustre action, and aversion to originality rendered it particularly dreadful. At its best the show was utterly boring. At its worst, however, it was an unmitigated and hilarious failure. This episode, featuring a regrettable guest appearance by Isaiah Washington, Katee Sackhoff chomping on drywall and furniture in a vague approximation of a tortured soul, and poor Michelle Ryan having to say, "Bring it on, bitch," was the worst example of the whole debacle, and a comedic masterpiece to boot. Highly recommended.

2. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - Two and a Half Deaths

As a successful show progresses, it will either stagnate or become scared of stagnation. CSI, a show that could potentially run forever with careful changes of cast, has dabbled with gimmickry to keep fresh something that doesn't need to be fiddled with. Though some of those tricks have worked well (the Miniature Killer arc, William Friedkin directing an episode, Liev Schreiber's guest appearance), swapping writing teams with the Two and a Half Men showrunners (Lee Aronsohn and Chuck Lorre) is a contender for the worst decision ever made in TV history. What is usually a pretty slick and intelligent piece of TV was instantly transformed into a score-settling grab-bag of cliches, weak jokes, eye-rolling performances, and petty attacks on the writers' former employers on Roseanne and Grace Under Fire. To willfully allow your show, a successful, well-loved work that relies on atmosphere and character acting for its impact, to be hijacked by a couple of giggling twerps with chips on their shoulders and only a vague understanding of what makes CSI work better than any other procedural on TV, is an almost suicidal gesture, and a shocking fuck you aimed at the fanbase. My previous praise for the show still stands, but if anything is going to kill the show, it will be failure of nerve. Stay the course, CSI showrunners.

1. Torchwood - Something Borrowed

Regular readers will not be surprised by the presence of the ever-dire Torchwood, but as with Lost, I had a tough time deciding which episode should represent the show at the top of this list. Contenders included the season opener, with James Marsters failing to make the show's trademark shitty dialogue work, as well as the garbled and shouty finale, and of course Meat, the hilariously misguided animal rights allegory that featured such delights as Ianto's demented taser rampage, Owen's "MERCY KILLING!", and Captain Jack's unforgettable face of empathic pain.

In the end, the right choice had to be Something Borrowed, not just because it represented sci fi at its most fat-headed and amateurish, but because it aired straight after the only episodes in the history of the show that didn't totally suck space ass. Reset was a fun episode that showed a spark of life, and the two subsequent episodes, while not anywhere near perfect, exhibited a willingness to tinker with the format. Regrettably, in a flurry of poorly choreographed gunplay, misjudged humour, and rampant ineptitude, all of that effort was erased, and Something Borrowed returned the show to its default position of Stupidest Thing on TV Not Involving Fearne Cotton, Jimmy Carr, or Simon Cowell. Meat might have been unintentionally funnier, but this made me laugh and depressed me simultaneously. Quite a trick. It's the sort of TV that poisons the soul, dulls the mind, and craps on the heart, and yet it is enormously, unfeasibly successful and adored. Go figger.

I think I might be able to milk this award-giving shtick out a bit further. Hey, it's easier than thinking!

End Of Season Review - Ugly Betty

Ironically, Ugly Betty, a show about fashion, appears to have been deemed by the hipster douchebag massive to be utterly unfashionable. No longer attracting the torrent of column inches it once did, nor as many articles about how groundbreaking it is to have a major primetime network show have a Hispanic female lead, the show has had to contend with that most galling of fates for a show that was once the hottest thing around; being taken for granted. In the UK, it's gotten so bad that C4 have delayed its return just so it can show hour after hour of horrible, tacky, stupid displays of unappealing bad behaviour, featuring a cast of blithering fuckwits, hopping from bed to bed, making fools of themselves and only getting a tarnished reputation into the bargain (I know, I said I wouldn't go on about Dirty Sexy Money again, but I'm seriously pissed about Betty's shunning).


After being accepted by the mainstream in its first season, winning awards and magazine covers and the love of even the most fashion-averse person in the world (i.e., me), the second season had the same air of early tiredness that The O.C. had after it made waves with its freshman year, though that might be a consequence of becoming part of the cultural landscape with such speed and success. Just to clarify, I don't mean that to be the insult that many others seem to. While some cultural commentators have written The O.C. off after its first season finale, we loved almost all of the second season and pretty much all of the fourth season, which was wonderfully unhinged. So Ugly Betty, after its excellent first season, had a sporadically highly entertaining second, with the odd mini-run of mediocrity, and a couple of patches of outright horror. Despite that, it was good enough to keep our interest, but we pray it doesn't have a third season to match The O.C.


Of all the shows that returned after the strike hiatus, this was the one that seemed most damaged. While pre-strike Betty had been mostly a lot of fun, when it came back it didn't seem to remember what had made the show fun in the first place. For a show that often feels like a half-spoof/half-homage to both the telenovela format it was adapted from and the endless churning plotlines of US daytime soaps, the second half of the season was disappointingly humdrum. The death of Bradford Meade (yet another onscreen heart attack for Alan Dale, matching the ones he had in The O.C. and Neighbours) triggered one last bonkers plot development, as Wilhelmina (the always excellent Vanessa Williams) extracted his sperm post-mortem, and convinced Christina to carry her and Bradford's child.

While this was pleasingly melodramatic, it regrettably gave the dreary mugging of Ashley Jensen more screentime, something that had been missing in the first half of the season. Seriously, what with her in this and Lucy Davis stinking up Reaper with her expanding bag of tics and incomprehensible line readings, there seems to be a war between the Gervais graduates to become Most Annoying UK Woman On US TV. Ladies, please call it a draw and come home. There are characters in The Bill going uncast right as we speak.


Other than that, only the relationship between Daniel and Wilhelmina's bipolar sister, Renee (played with sadly wasted gusto by Gabrielle Union), came close to generating that crazy frisson the show once had, but even that fell flat. It was transparently a contrived way to keep Wilhelmina in the same plot orbit as Daniel and the rest of the Mode staff after Bradford's widow and children finally found a reason to remove her from the magazine. This was all necessary; once Bradford had died, and Wilhelmina's duplicity had been revealed, there was no way to realistically keep her on staff before the announcement of her imminent child/heir to the Meade fortune, so she had to be removed.

It was understandable plot mechanics, but it was little fun to watch, mostly because it committed the cardinal sin of separating Marc and Amanda, whose friendship and bitchiness are our favourite thing about the show. There was a stretch of episodes where they didn't interact at all, with Marc nothing more than Wilhelmina's foil (also fun, but not in the same league as his screentime with Amanda), and Amanda chasing her real father, who for a time seemed to be Gene Simmons.


That was another problem with the latter half of the season. Although I don't have anything against stunt casting, and think it's often brilliant when done well (e.g., James Carville on 30 Rock and Carl Weathers on Arrested Development), it can also go very wrong or be totally pointless. While Simmons and Betty White worked out quite well, I'm still having nightmares about Eliza Dushku's abominable "comedic" performance, and appearances by Posh Spice (gak!), Larry King, Lindsay Lohan, and Naomi Campbell were wasted (though it was a pleasant surprise to see her appear, the jokes about Campbell's violent streak were disappointingly predictable). I guess that's the price you pay once a show you like becomes popular. All the "cool kids" want to hang out with it.

With the garish soap theatrics kept to a minimum, the show relied on the relationship dramas to keep it afloat. We'd grown to like the characters, so it seemed like a good idea, but, sadly, it was often a mistake. Hilda's flirting with Justin's high school gym teacher was meet-bland, Daniel's fling with Wilhelmina's sister served only to keep the plate containing his irresponsible libido spinning, and Marc's boyfriend Cliff mysteriously disappeared from sight as soon as they were seen trying to hire pr0n together. Come back, Cliff! Your relationship with Marc was the only one we ended up caring about!


Of course, the main relationship drama was provided by the Betty-Henry-Gio-Charlie square, a plot I had enjoyed at the start of the season. However, by the time the season finale rolled around, I was utterly bored with it. In the first season we had dreaded the onscreen arrival of Betty's first boyfriend Walter in every episode (for all time he will be known as the Ugly Betty Gupta), while at the same time hoping Henry would return to make nerdy love eyes at Betty.

This season, every appearance of Henry served to piss us off, as we saw that he was actually not good enough for Betty either. As she grows as a person, and moves towards becoming a good writer (though probably never a great one; a lovely and realistic touch in a show that often skirts the edges of absurdity), it's obvious she's holding herself back to embark on a doomed love affair with someone whose chivalrous need to do the right thing by his new child will always get in the way of their love, if it even is love by that point. We grew ever more frustrated to see Henry's vacillation and crossed priorities get in the way of Betty's happiness, at first because we felt bad for her, and eventually because we felt bad for ourselves, as the same plot returned over and over.


That said, even if we found the arc dull, we thought it featured some of the cleverest writing, directing, and acting of the whole season. At first steadfastly Team Henry, I reacted strongly and negatively to the introduction of Gio, played by Freddy Rodriguez, this time sans rubber arm. Having loved Six Feet Under, we are steadfast fans of Rodriguez, but Gio royally pissed me off with his cockiness and bravado (Canyon was more forgiving). However, with Henry's need to do the right thing often being indistinguishable from lack of backbone, by the end of the season we had washed our hands of him, thrown out our Team Henry badges, and put on Team Gio t-shirts. When, in the penultimate episode, he says to Betty, "I don't wanna be the rebound guy. I wanna be the guy," I went nuts. OMG Betty you have to marry Gio immediately!


Of course, the problem with the rise of Gio is that the battle between him and Henry was only even for about an episode, as Gio's rise mirrored Henry's fall. By the time Henry turned up at Betty's doorstep to ask him to move to Tucson, we just got mad. Gio won! Get over it! (Though it does appear prescient now.) With Charlie (Jayma Mays) turned into a hissable cartoon villain (another misstep for the show; her character worked much better when she was even vaguely sympathetic, making Henry's need for Betty even more uncomfortable and dramatic), there was no way his plan could work -- not to mention that it would wreck the show. The final shot hinted that Betty got on a plane, but to travel to Tucson with Henry, or on holiday to Rome with Gio? Or to New York, where the show will be filmed next season thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger and tax incentives.


If you've made it this far, you'll note that I have little good to say about the show. Some of the characters became neutered (Judith Light's awesome Claire Meade went from semi-unhinged bitch to kindly fairy godmother) or too unpleasant (Alexis became a humourless bully). Some plotlines disappeared entirely (Marc and Cliff's relationship, Ignatio's past crimes), or started off well and dribbled to an inconclusive stop (Justin's grief over his father's death, which had been one of the more compelling arcs of the season). As before, a lot of this could be attributed to the effects of the strike, but whereas the first season had a shockingly high quality level, some of the episodes from the second season are the worst ever. Some weeks I even wondered why I bothered watching it.


If this were any other show that means I would stop, but Ugly Betty still has flashes of brilliance, and remains one of the most consistently well directed shows on TV. Though the clunky episodes were as empty and uninspiring as the most tired examples of the genre it mocks, and even though there were some appalling promotional gaffes here and there (the blatant shout-outs to Wicked and 27 Dresses were just awful), it still held our attention to the end, and still managed to surprise and delight us often enough to make us forgive it its shortcomings. In part that's down to the great cast, with America Ferrera, Vanessa Williams, comedy genius Becki Newton and her equally brilliant BFF Michael Urie, Mark Indelicato, and (when he has something to do) Tony Plana taking most of the honours. I'd watch the show just to see them all at work, no matter how crappy things get.

Plus, even at its worst it kept its good-hearted tone, which counts in its favour. Though many of the characters are snide, the show itself totally sincere in its klaxon-loud appeals to good nature and honesty, a trait I find myself continually happified by, even though I'm the archetypal grouch. A disappointment, then, but by no means a failure. I do hope next season heralds a real return to form, though that shooting relocation does make one wonder whether the tone of the show will change. One thing is for certain. Unless it suddenly became implausibly awesome as soon as I stopped watching it, Dirty Sexy Money will always be in its shadow, a poor imitation of glossy, soapy entertainment, empty and lunk-headed and mechanical. It's not fit to lick Betty's unattractive shoes.

The Shunning of the Blog

Yesterday I made a purchase of a gadget, a beautiful gadget of such wondrous magical power that given time I could bring the world to its stinky knees. No, not a time machine, or an Absorbascon, or Doctor Impossible's Power Staff; a really nice phone! It's new for me to have something that is not just used for texting and Tetris, so I'm very taken with the power of the thing, but sadly, there is one side effect; looking at this blog from a PDA or handheld computer automatically flags it as having objectionable content. Objectionable! Perhaps if you're a writer on Dirty Sexy Money, or you think that liking William Petersen is somehow a terrible thing (there are people like that out there, oddly enough), but other than commenting on those things, I like to keep it clean, though possibly mean. So the black mark I've given myself irks me greatly.

So anyway, I've asked for advice in Blogger Help Groups, and apparently it doesn't mean anything and I'm silly for worrying, but if this blog has vanished from Blogger or Google, it wasn't me and I'm not a filthy pornster! I'm just gadget-besotted and Blogger has a bug in it. So there.

This Week in TV (Week 5)

Things might be settling down in TV land by now. I certainly found myself enjoying several shows on their own merits instead of concentrating on writing mistakes and figuring out which shows are broken and which aren't. Even some of the shows that have vexed me in the past have entertained me greatly this week. Perhaps I've been thinking about them too hard because I'm officially a blogger now, with all of the fame, glory, and riches that that coveted position entails. I also have the responsibility of writing content that will shatter the zeitgeist into little zeity pieces of geist. For some reason, this week, I've tried giving that responsibility a break, possibly because a few days ago I watched Spider-Man 3, and dang, everyone involved can shove their great responsibility up their asses, with great power, because that movie sucked. Time to chill out and have some fun with my TV viewing. Perhaps not watching Chuck helped (that was an error on our part, especially as Veronica Mars star writer John Enbom worked on it, but what are you gonna do? It would have cut into our Guitar Hero II time).

The highlight of the week was, once more, provided by 30 Rock. For all the wonderful material handed Tina Fey, Jack McBrayer, Jane Krakowski, Scott Adsit, and especially guest star Carrie Fisher as the borderline insane "Future Liz", the scene that will inevitably be referenced and quoted and talked about incessantly by Rock fans (probably to non-Rock fans, in such a fevered and enthusiastic manner that it would probably put them off) was the award-deserving scene with Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan in therapy, with Tracy in straight man mode and Jack going on an extended and enthusiastic riff filled with impersonations and racially stereotypical behaviour. As someone noted on the AV Club comment thread, the set up earlier in the episode, with Liz railing against commercialism and praising risk-taking was half screw-you to Studio 60, and half meta-gauntlet-throwing. At first it looked like nothing more than a joke; as soon as crazy Carrie Fisher said they should make jokes about race, Liz freaked out and refused, saying jokes about race were right out. 15 minutes later, and Jack is squawking like Redd Foxx and threatening his "wife" with a beating, prior to being shot and killed by "Da Honkies". First time I watched it I didn't know how to take it, second time it blew me away.


Even more unorthodox was Liz making a choice to sell out to GE at the end. I'd like to think the message was that she was more interested in being funny than daring (Carrie Fisher's radical feminist comedy was, after all, purposely dreadful). It's not the first time the show has imparted this message. In a previous episode a worthy sketch written by Twofer and Tracy is dropped for something empty but funny, so the moral of the show seems to be "Funny first", which is, to a certain extent, a dig at Sorkin, but mostly a philosophy of life. Liz giving up on her ideals should bug me, because TV likes to teach us that pious do-goodery and noble intentions are worth more than going for the easy laugh, but it's refreshing to see a show praise someone for just wanting to do well in life and achieve one simple goal; make 'em laugh.


It's nothing new for 30 Rock. There may be a thread to the show about the war between commerce and art, but it's usually been about coming to a happy middle-point instead of art conquering all (which would be unrealistic and unfunny). It always seemed to me that that was the secondary engine of the show, with the main driving force in the show being the tension between steady, successful, mature Jack and flighty loser and Queen Nerd Liz. The masterstroke has always been that Jack is not a humourless money-making caricature but a three-dimensional business genius who may not fully understand art and humour but gets that Liz is in turmoil and wants to help her achieve her potential.

Yes, commerce and art battle, but they are only a small part of what makes Jack and Liz such a great onscreen partnership. His mentoring of her, his acceptance of her need to struggle against it, and her slow realisation that she needs his wisdom more than she expected, is part of why this is my favourite non-romantic relationship on TV, and their final scene, with him so exasperated with her for not knowing how to work within the system for her own ends, was just adorable. ::sigh:: I now nominate this best show currently airing. Until Lost returns, of course.


Tell Me You Have No Qualms About Shtupping Me was especially fun this week, as Palek the Vulcan Inseminatron suddenly entered the Pon Farr, the mating cycle that hits all Vulcans every 7 years. Poor Carolyn, trying to get on with her baby-less life, when Palek goes all plak tow on her ass, demanding sex and becoming a bigger douche than ever. It does not end well, as he tries to hit on the last woman to treat him even the slightest bit of polite civility, i.e. some innocent clothes shop assistant (see above). He hits her with the full force of his undeniable emotionless charisma, and it seemed as if she was responding a little, just as, somewhere in their forest retreat, Carolyn realises, OMG, she is pregnant! What are the chances that that lazy writing would come into play right then? The show ends with her ecstatic face, having forgotten Palek's terrible anti-baby behaviour of the past week or so, and Palek approximating human happiness with his new crush. I hope she doesn't already have a boyfriend, or there will have to be the Kalifee, just like that time on Vulcan when Spock got all pissy.



The other amusing thing about the show is the weekly cameo by the Predator. Outside Carolyn and Palek's Fortress of Solitude (so named because it is as sterile as Superman's icy pad), there is a forest of some kind. Very pretty, but from within you can hear the familiar clacking of a Predator. Is he stalking them? We'd been betting that the season would end with the increasingly adorable David and Katie finally having sex (they're certainly heading that way, what with this week's endearing scenes with them ogling each others sex parts), but now I think there's going to be a brutal cast cull and a cameo by Carl Weathers. Which would also be great.

Heroes was better than usual, though still not the jawdropping cauldron of boiling excitement it needs to be as soon as possible if it's going to reclaim all of my love. As I said before in another post, the heroes are just not heroic, and just to piss me off a little more, Monica was given a chance to rat out the scummy guy she kicked through a sheet of glass last week, but backed out of it when her loser friend objected. What's the betting he pops up again soon, probably to kill Nichelle Nichols, spurring Monica on to use her powers for good, so that she pretty much becomes a K-Ville cross between Spider-Man and part-time Avengers member Echo? Too late. Why couldn't she do that? Because the writers need her to go through the motions of discovering her power, and they apparently haven't got the imagination (or time or money, if I'm going to be generous) to explore other avenues or story-telling possibilities.

At least she seemed to finally enjoy it once Micah calmed her down. While watching it I got more and more agitated that she wasn't doing what I would do if I had her muscle mimic powers, i.e. watching a bunch of martial arts movies, but thankfully they addressed that at the end. Sadly she was trying to learn Jason Scott Lee's moves in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. What? Go to the source, young padawan. and take in Drunken Master 2 while you're at it, because the thought of you doing this on network TV makes me grin like a Cheshire Cat.



In other news, Canyon and I suddenly found ourselves loving Nathan Petrelli, of all people. He was pretty wasted last year, but the disgruntled bitchy version 2.0 is very entertaining. He seems to be the only actor in the show still having fun. He also featured in the awesome nightmare sequence, with him and Matt trapped in the dreamworld of Matt's dad, the Nightmare Man. It didn't last long, but it was a terrific sequence of events, adding new mysteries to the show in a dynamic manner. It was the best writing of the season so far, though the dialogue still grated. Did I really hear The Nightmare Man say, "Maybe we're not so different, you and I"? Oh dear. And if Matt can wake Nathan up from the dream, why can't he wake Molly up. I get the feeling he's probably a bit pissed with those night-time dinner conversations where she ends up yelling at him about something or other, such as the long, dark pizza night of their soul.


Still, it was fun, and ADRIAN PASDAR! is doing some great work, and his hair is very very high. That said, it's pretty obvious that he's the guy who murdered Kaito, so his sarcasm isn't a newly discovered charming side, but more a precursor of his inevitable slide into villainy. It matches up with his brother's walk on the dark side, though of course he will be redeemed and become a good person, probably when he gets a bump on the noggin and gets his memory back. Whatever. Oh, and Kristin Bell showed up last night, as Elle, the Elle-ectrical lady sent to capture Peter. She might have been great. I have no idea, as her dialogue was crushingly bad, and her direction was to appear to be miffed and sarcastic no matter what the context. I did not enjoy her appearance at all, probably because I was thinking, "You passed up Lost for this? GAH!"

I've always enjoyed House, except for some terrible episodes last season where the fun was utterly lost, but my God, the fourth season is a revelation. Even if last season had comprised nothing but episodes with Wilson being made to be the opposite of fun by Tritter chewing gum noisily and threatening him with all sorts of horrible punishment, it would have been worth slogging through to get to this season, which has been absolutely wonderful. The temporary format of the show is still working like gangbusters, giving the showrunners huge amounts of material to work with, and all of it is gold.


I've fallen in love with the show all over again, but we both noted with much sadness that it's all well and good to be pissed at the showrunners for slowly chipping away at the candidates until a new trio of whipping boys (and girls) is created instead of keeping the whole team, but the main reason this is working is because the team are at each other's throats. Take away that tension and the concept stops working. The inbuilt obsolescence is what makes it so good. Anne Dudek as Cutthroat Bitch/Amber is particularly good. She is utterly loathsome, but so so watchable. Without the competition to work with House, she'd just be obnoxious. Hopefully she'll make it to the last four and then get booted out, hopefully in a really humiliating way, like when Jade got to the last three in America's Next Top Model cycle 7. Or was it 6. Whatever. Amber is just so evil and yet I think she's awesome. Even when she's at full Guptocity, it's fun to watch her scheme. That said, it was sad to see the last of the delightful Carmine Argenziano, but even though we went, "DAMMIT!" when he was cut from the team, the decision to remove him from the Cottage shortlist was understandable, and beautifully explained. The writers are on fire so far. Please let it continue beyond the three weeks I guess it will take for House to choose his Cottages.

Also very strong this week was Pushing Daisies, now 100% Sonnenfeld free (except in an executive producing capacity). Sadly he was there long enough for a visual template to be created that the rest of the show is kinda forced to follow, but director Adam Kane (another cinematographer turned director) managed to keep the hyper-realism without resorting to the same four tricks for the entire show. As a result I could actually relax and just enjoy the show without my eyes getting too annoyed.


Rina Mimoun's script was funny too, and only occasionally overplayed the cutesy factor, though perhaps things slackened a bit in the latter half, but it was great to see Dash Mihok and Jayma Mays doing their thing, and basically it's the sort of episode that fans of the first three episodes would probably consider a letdown, but people irked by those same episodes would consider a blessed relief and massive improvement. I get the feeling there will be a division of the fanbase sooner rather than later, those who want it to go for all-out tweeness and those of us glad for a slackening. Just so you know, my faction will bring weapons to this reckoning.

Oddly enough, considering how down I've been on Pushing Daisies in the past, this week it was Reaper that disappointed, but only a little. There were many delights: Tyler Labine throwing cereal into Sam's mouth as he slept; the cameo by Aaron "Tyrol" Douglas; lots of pratfalls; our heroes stuck in jail. That said, the tone of the show is slowly changing as the series progresses, and yes, finally we see the beginnings of an arc as Sam's dad begins to act all shady about the contract and the Devil starts showing his true colours. He's really enjoying making Sam's life hell, and it's as upsetting to see as it is entertaining.

So yeah, I'm becoming a bit conflicted about it, though kudos to the showrunners for equating Sam's dead-end job in retail with his dead-end job as the Devil's lackey. A nice touch. Plus, even though Andi is becoming a more interesting character, it's only because the Devil is forcing Sam to keep his role as a Satanic bounty hunter. Other than that she's still just a cypher, and the show drags whenever Missy Peregrym is onscreen. It's a shame, but it's not ruining the show. Just creating tiny longeurs. It will survive it. Because of this wonderful wonderful grin, of course.


Here's a wonder that happened without the benefit of That Grin; Bionical Woman did not totally totally suck. It was merely crushingly average with a couple of tolerably entertaining scenes. I really think this has a lot to do with the lack of Katee Sackhoff as the Fifty Million Dollar Mangirl. Her hammy performances and bleak plotline have been responsible for driving a lot of the show, which shows a terrible lack of faith on the showrunners part concerning the main character of the show. Without it, the show temporarily reinvented itself as that most rare of things, an action adventure show about rival spy factions getting in each others way while trying to capture deadly technology from scientists while anonymous gangs of terrorists try to kill them. It's something TV has never had the guts to attempt before, and so kudos to the Morgans and Jason Smilovic and David Eick and everyone else on the show for revolutionising TV. If only Jaime was working in an anonymous retailer offering advice about computers; then it would truly be groundbreaking.

::really bored and disappointed sigh:: Okay, so the show became even more formulaic and unadventurous than ever, but thankfully Friday Night Lights producer Jason Katims has had the foresight to import not only actor Kevin Rankin, but also ace writer Liz Heldens. Her light touch improved the dialogue massively, and the phone conversation between Ryan (so much better when talking with an English accent) and Rankin was positively entertaining. They both need a lot more screen time together.


I know Canyon hated Rankin's FNL character Herc and practically considered him the show Gupta, but I thoroughly enjoyed his saltiness. Pairing him up with the holier-than-thou Street was a genius move, and I looked forward to his unapologetic dickery each week. On Bionic Woman he's similarly snotty, but the likeability is amped up. He's stealing the show week in, week out. If the new team can capitalise on his charm, and make Jaime's implants malfunction so she constantly speaks in an English accent, this show will be on the way to becoming not the absolute worst thing on TV (see below for info on the show that is bottom of my viewing list).

Remember how I kept complaining about the hour-long Office? This week it was half an hour and it didn't seem long enough. That's not to say I wish it was still an hour long; it means I'm even more mad at the showrunners for doing it in the first place. It's going to be weeks before I get back into the swing of the original format. Of course, it was still great, with Dwight becoming more and more adorable every week, but it was one of those episodes of The Office that I would put in the subset called, "I really really really hate Michael Scott." This time it was mostly because he was mean to the office musicians, who were adorable. Especially The Mighty Creed, seen here in the grip of a Guitar Hero fugue just like the ones we suffer from.


A lot of the time I find Michael endearingly pathetic, or somehow noble (his appearance at Pam's art show in season three might be his finest moment), but every so often I just want to throw him off the roof of Dunder Mifflin onto a bouncy castle. At Phyllis' wedding I despised him so much I wondered if the show had broken him, and the resolution of that episode where Phyllis forgives him just angered me more. This week he treated the whole team like a bunch of idiots, and yes, I get the joke that given a creative role he would become a tyrant instead of an "entertainer", but he was so mean to everyone I was desperate to see his advert fail. Hopefully next week I'll start to like him again.

Ugly Betty was also not as amusing as usual, but then it seemed to be resolving some of the downbeat plot threads introduced last week. How wrong I was about Betty and Henry. The scene where they decide to forget about their problems for 5 months and go for it despite the inevitable heartache was unexpectedly moving and, for this show, unusually bittersweet. Even better than that was Marc's new relationship with fashion photographer Cliff. Although seemingly doomed by Marc's relentless superficiality, their reconciliation at the end was wonderful, and fit in perfectly with the theme of the show (honesty and integrity vs. shallowness and emotional cowardice). Marc has been fleshed out wonderfully since his introduction in the first season, especially with his mentoring of Justin, and this new relationship is a welcome continuation of that trend. I'm already rooting for them to make it work out.


While the Meade family falls apart a little more each week, Hilda and Justin have come together at last after weeks of grieving. Their scenes have been simultaneously horrifying and funny, especially Hilda's clique of depressed widows making quilts out of their dead husbands' clothes, but hopefully now some semblance of normality will return. The death of Justin's father came out of nowhere in the season 1 finale and I wondered where they would go with it. Miraculously, they have dramatised Hilda and Justin's grief without overwhelming the light tone of the show. Amazing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; Ugly Betty is a marvel, doing things that no other soap on TV seems to be able to manage, or even attempt (this week I was even told by two male non-TV watchers that they love it, which, if you knew them, would be final proof as to how universally appealing it is. You'll just have to take my word on it). Compare it to the still-risible Dirty Sexy Money, now restored to usual levels of suckery with the departure of ace writer Diane Ruggiero. Not that her presence did much to improve the show, but it did raise its game a little. This week, nothing worked. Even the most notable moment, i.e. Tripp and Jeremy's reconciliation toward the end of the episode, only worked because Donald Sutherland, again, blew the bloody doors off with his professionalism and enthusiasm. The writing was pitifully flat, the resolution contrived, the emotional intensity unearned. Plus, I'm really superpissed that there has been no mention of his pimp coat since the first episode.


Considering Ugly Betty is so garish and over the top, it always surprises me how delicate it can be when it needs to. Betty and Henry's thread was superbly handled, and avoided contrivance so completely that when they kiss at the end the moment is all the more affecting (Shades of Caruso code for: I cried. Happy now?). In Dirty Sexy Money, every line of dialogue hammers home exposition so clumsily that instead of feeling the moment, you're told what is going on. Anvils clang continually, so loud there is no space for any other information or nuance to come through.

Dad, I feel so bad that I have lots of money. I want a job so that I can prove myself to you! Because your respect means so much to me, even though this is the first time I've mentioned it and it really only means anything in the context of the events of the previous 40 minutes of show time.

CLANG!

You can't buy that silly painting! It's expensive, and hanging around with the incredibly rich Darlings has shown me that conspicuous consumption is a bad thing! And yes, I acted like I hated it all in the first couple of scenes of the first episode, but I guess this is what passes for character growth in this show's world.

CLANG!

Yes, I tried to employ your father, because he wanted to do good things with his money but couldn't while working with those wacky dysfunctional Darlings. Have you managed to do anything charitable since starting work with them? No? Why, how odd! Perhaps it's time you did. Maybe in the final scene, so you can look all wistful at the hand that life has dealt you.

CLANG!


Show, don't tell, is advice that gets bandied around all the time, and for good reason. Betty and Henry's pain is evident but they refuse to acknowledge it, allowing Christopher Gorham and America Ferrera to perform around their dialogue. In Dirty Sexy Money, Seth Gabel, Samaire Armstrong and Donald Sutherland are forced to ignore emotional subtext and deliver lines that hit the nail on the head, often in looping afterward, just in case the viewer has missed something obvious, because we're all drooling pinheads just waiting for another reality show to come along so we don't get distracted or challenged while trying to eat pudding with our index finger.

I guess that's the main difference between both shows; Ugly Betty treats its audience with respect, and Dirty Sexy Money assumes the audience cannot function without constant handholding. That would also explain the relentless exposition that plagues the show and accounts for about 35% of the dialogue. Plus, Ugly Betty understands the current pop culture landscape better than Dirty Sexy Money; making Donald Sutherland refer to such modern superstars as Justin Timberlake and Ethan Hawke was horribly clumsy, though redeemed by his hilarious line reading. He is so far and away the best thing about this show that everyone else onscreen should hang their head in shame.


They should look to Friday Night Lights for a lesson in how to do it. Every episode contains hours of information-per-second crammed into 45 minutes, and even when it's not amazing it's still the best drama on TV right now. This week saw the murder plot move forward with the discovery of the body, but even though that was dealt with better than feared, the meat of the show came with Coach Taylor's return to Dillon and the resumption of his coaching of the Panthers. Of course, the changeover was anything but smooth, thanks to the usual bumbling by Buddy Garrity, but even if it causes problems in the long run, for now the format of the show is back to normal, and even better, we'll get more scenes with Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton together, which is the best news ever.

Also fun was Riggins and Street's Amazing Mexican Adventure, which featured much drinking and misunderstandings about shark DNA. Taylor Kitsch has always had great chemistry with Scott Porter, but as Kitsch/Riggins spent little time with Porter/Street during the first season for various reasons (i.e. being a big sleazy coward who shtupped his girlfriend and kept avoiding him), they didn't have a chance to get together much. This week they went crazy in Mexico, and Riggins began to panic for his friend.


Dirty Sexy Money showrunners, watch this goddamn show. So much was unsaid during their scenes together, but tons and tons of information was imparted through superior performances, writing, editing and photography. Their past weighed on every line and look between them, but the only things we heard were their bitching to each other about getting drunk and finding women.

Okay, so Dirty Sexy Money doesn't have a whole season of backstory to utilise, but even in the first season we found out more about these characters from what was shown or not shown, instead of through pages and pages of exposition. The same goes for all the other characters. It's how everyone should be making shows now, treating the audience with some respect instead of assuming they cannot follow soap operatics after decades of living with the conventions of the genre. Perhaps this is why I watch Dirty Sexy Money; it makes me appreciate Friday Night Lights all the more.

On the good old BBC, with its funding depleted and staff revolting, The Culture Show continues onward, at least for a time before getting cut back. It's a shame, though only because the BBC doesn't have enough arts programming, and this hodge-podge of tiny flighty features is better than nothing. I very rarely watch it, as it doesn't get to spend enough time dealing with any subject. I may not be a fan of The South Bank Show either, but at least it gets to treat its subjects with extra time. This week featured some amusing stuff. Verity Sharp interviewed Cate Blanchett about Elizabeth 2: Raleigh Me Up and the Dylan biopic It's Not Me, Babe, It's a Bunch of Other Actors Playing Me, or whatever it's called. Most of it was a slight remove from the usual puff pieces you see on entertainment TV, but Sharp, after pointing out that her performance as Dylan was from his early, curiously feminine/androgynous early years, memorably asked Blanchett how masculine her Elizabeth was, to which Canyon continued, "50% masculine? 60%?" Blanchett looked suitably rattled by the stupid question.

Even more entertaining was Frank Gardner, BBC Security Correspondent, interviewing Jake Gyllenhall about Rendition. We got to see Gardner preparing Gyllenhaal for the interview (which was obviously one of many held as part of a press junket that day) by telling him he was a journalist who had been shot and paralysed by al-Qaeda insurgents. The look of confusion and terror on Jakey's face was hilarious, but luckily his responses during the interview were more thoughtful.


Silliest of all was Mark "Zoot Suit" Kermode interviewing Greatest Living Film Director David Cronenberg about his new movie Eastern Promises. Of course, a significant chunk of that time was spent discussing how the new movie fits in with Cronenberg's horror filmography, which is something that drives me crazy. Of the 17 full length films he has made (I'm counting Stereo and Crimes of the Future as one, as they're an hour long each and are often screened together as companion pieces), 7 of them aren't horror, and some of the others are so odd as to defy genre descriptions. For example, is Naked Lunch really a horror film? Or eXistenZ?

Anyway, when interviewers or critics focus on these films it makes me wonder if they have any interest in the development of his oeuvre, choosing instead to rely on lazy thinking. That said, I'll give Kermode a break on this one as he is obviously a horror film fan and was probably very excited about interviewing the great man, as well he should be. That said, why oh why oh why did he decide to set up an elaborate series of cameras and monitors so that they could talk with their backs to each other, with their faces filmed head on? Kermode said it was because Cronenberg's films are unflinching, so he wanted the camera to look right into his face. It was such a silly, pretentious thing to do that I could barely concentrate on the interview over the embarrassment I felt for Cronenberg. He handled it well. Class act, that guy. And his hair is positively Pasdarian.

This Week in TV: Week 4

Boy, was a lot of this week TV miserable. I'm not saying it was all bad (though of course some of it was), but in the fourth week, shows either went for pathos or started to introduce darker themes. Perhaps this is something writing teams know about; three weeks of establishing the status quo, then in the fourth week, set up the big problems and season arcs.

The Office was darker than ever, to the point that it overshadowed the obvious comic highlights (the hilarious conference-room discussion about the difference between whoever and whomever that gave everyone a chance to shine, the visit to Shrute Farms). Nathan Rabin wrote an excellent review of it that hit on a lot of the good points of the show, especially the heartbreaking moment between Jim and Dwight. Having Jim and Pam become his protectors and semi-friends is perfect (Dwight probably did more to bring them together than they realise, just by being the subject of their mockery), as was his post-talk acception/rejection in the office. As for Michael's depression, the show crossed the line between humour and horror, and then edged back again. Just.


I respect the showrunners for doing that, but while watching the show, I just felt horrible. Nice that they're acknowledging the currently miserable lower-middle-class job situation, though. I get the feeling they've all been reading Joshua Ferris' excellent novel, And Then We Came To The End, which is the tragic comedy to The Office's funny tragedy (or are they the other way around?). There has already been a plot about redundancy with the branch shutdown arc, but while that hung over the first couple of seasons like a dark cloud, there was no way the showrunners could go through with it without ending the show. This is a more viable way to address the uncertainty of the US job market and the stagnating economy, and again it shows how ambitious the show is. A simple sitcom about office politics this is not, but then if you watch the show you already know that.



Ugly Betty also dropped the Sword of Damocles on a relationship that appears to have been doomed from the start. Though the episode featured many hilarious moments (my favourite being Amanda's declaration, "You were all at Studio 54 that night and I will find that Tweetie Bird if I have to search all of your asses!"), Henry finally found out that he was indeed the father of Charlie's baby, which surely finishes that arc off, or at least deals the fatal blow. The final scene, with Henry and Betty trying to come to terms with this news, hit hard, possibly because it was coming off the back of Justin's descent into inept machismo, and Wilhemina's plotting to destroy Mode.

Man, writing that out makes it seem like a bunch of frothiness, but in fact it was a real downer. The events might seem trivial, but the tone of the show darkened considerably. We were not left with the usual post-Betty glow. This is not a criticism. It was still great stuff, and Oh My God! Victor Garber! +100000 points for finding a role for the long-missed Spy-Daddy.


Speaking of post-Alias TV, to a certain extent Chuck tried to get in on the miserablism with a subplot about Sarah grieving for her dead boyfriend as well as bemoaning her lost identity and spyness, but it's not really a smart enough show to make it work (yet; it could still improve, after all). Yvonne Strahovski is possibly a better actress than it seems here; it's not like she's got good enough material to work with. Nevertheless, for the first time she was asked to do more than just kick women in the face while wearing a short skirt (though that did happen as well), and the moment fell flat, not because she's not up to it, but because the show is asking us to care about a relationship between a hott female spy and an absent, dead, hott male spy partner. He's not onscreen, and was only in the show for a couple of minutes in the first episode (mostly as a stuntman) and yet he looms over both Sarah and Chuck in a way that falls flat because we have no memory of him the way they do.


As a result, we don't care that he upset Chuck, and we don't care that Sarah still loves him. It's asking us to care what the dead spy did, but to the audience he's just that free-running guy who was nothing more than a very agile inciting incident. Perhaps the nerds in the audience can remember back to similar experiences of jock humiliation from their college days, and perhaps the female members of the audience can relate to Sarah because their boyfriend was similarly killed for trying to email secrets to someone outside the government, but that's at a remove. The show is trying to run before it can walk. It's a light, slightly entertaining spy show. It's not drama. Maybe eventually, but not now. Again it made me pine for Alias, which did that stuff amazingly well, but it also made me pine for the first season of The O.C., because that also did pretty much everything right (for a while, at least). This is just landing with a dull thud every week. Thank God NBC have commissioned Bionical Woman as well. That saves it from the ignominy of being the season's worst new show. I'll get to that pile of crap later.

Sorry to keep comparing Chuck to Reaper, but they are vying for the same nerd audience, and while Chuck feels like the major label release by a band who have already had a critically lauded number one album on a smaller label, only to fall foul of sophomore slump, Reaper is the ambitious debut of a plucky indie band. Well, an indie band while making their first couple of singles who get signed up to release their album on a subsidiary of a different major label, like when Warner made that Sub-Pop-emulating mini-label that included Mudhoney on its roster for a while. Gah! You know what I mean!

Anyway, Reaper was, again, very entertaining, though signs of Andi becoming the show's weak link are starting to show. What is her purpose again, other than to be the object of desire? They need to give her something to do other than be cute and unattainable. Missy Peregrym was nowhere near as dull as this when she was on Heroes. We need to see some of that fire again. Oh, and finally making The Devil more than just a trickster, and hinting at more depth to the central premise by introducing the battle between him and Sam over the contract? Excellent. Heart Ray Wise! How easy it is for that adorable smile to go very very bad.


CSI may not have had the melancholy air of the other shows, but with episode four there were set-ups for the season arc. At least I assume they were. CSI has been the classic example of how one-off procedural shows can still exist and work brilliantly in a long-form world that has seen many story-of-the-week shows deemed obsolete. Every week a new case is introduced, and at the end the case is solved (most of the time). Last season, however, saw the show bring in the excellent Miniature Killer arc, which popped in and out of the procedural, often to devastating effect (as I've said before, Monster in the Box might be the single best episode of CSI ever). This season, the producers have hinted that there would be something similar introduced, but if this episode is anything to go by, it won't be a single criminal, but an ongoing case against a water-processing plant. I hope other fans are as excited about that as I am. It would be Erin Brockovich with less biker beards!

At least I hope that's where they are going with this. The episode was filled with some really crappy deductive work by our heroes, for the first time in CSI history. They were investigating the death of a boy suffering from gynecomastia working at a water treatment plant hanging around with a scientist investigating large quantities of hermaphroditic fish swimming in a local lake, a death that could just as easily have been suicide as murder? The team don't spot the connection straight away, and instead chase disgruntled co-workers for most of the episode. It was odd to see our heroes be inept for the first time ever. If this is the season arc, it at least explains why the show slowed down so much, and had so much exposition. If it's set-up, then it was ponderous, but I understand. If not, then it was just a disappointing episode. Featuring an ugly and yet somewhat charming hat.


To a certain extent, that is. It also featured some great material. CSI: Miami is notoriously stupid, featuring either stock plots or outrageous melodrama in the place of actual crime scene analysis. The original show, thankfully, is proud to have science as its main focus, and this episode featured a lot of it. What with the water treatment plant investigation, Hodges pioneering a new technique and vowing to write a paper about it, and Gil's ongoing investigation into worldwide bee population decrease (something that only hit the mainstream media a couple of weeks ago), it's plain that the show is not shying away from giving scientists their due. Read enough paranoid books and features on Dawkins and his atheist cohorts, and you fear that science and rationalism is on the outs. CSI made me feel safe that somewhere in the mainstream, a rational outlook is still treated as beneficial. It's also edumacational; don't pull bee stings out of your skin as it releases the venom. You should scrape them out instead.


Best of all this week was the totally out-of-the-blue marriage proposal scene, with Gil (hilariously wearing his old woman hat over the top of his bee mask) just dropping the question into normal conversation. Often in story-of-the-week shows, the characters are merely redundant exposition devices, but this show manages to tease out tiny bits of information about its cast of characters in the most subtle ways. We know they have a backstory only because we pay attention to the details. It's very rare that an episode will focus on their personal lives; Catherine's family being the only recurring instance of plots based around her, but they're almost always fascinating, especially when her sadly-deceased dad Sam Braun is involved. Instead we get little windows into their lives, like the endearing revelation that Greg is writing a book on Las Vegas history. In CSI: Miami, if a character has a life outside their work, it usually involves sex or relationships. In the original and best, it involves little character details like that. Man, this show really does feature some of my favourite character writing.

The Gil-Sara romance is a case-in-point. They've been dating for ages, and now they're getting married. While other shows would make a big deal about it, here it happened in the middle of the episode without any warning or fanfare. It made it all the more touching, and cheered us both up considerably, after the misery of the other shows. Shame she's only in the show for a little while longer. It does not bode well for their future.

Beyond the sadness and the arc establishment, this week also saw Dirty Sexy Money finally not totally suck. It was by no means a triumph (God no), and Canyon couldn't even brave it (I think she was wise to; I'm only sticking with it out of stubbornness), but while the plots are unoriginal (school bullying, marital strife, affairs, jealousy), at least the dialogue had improved massively since last week. I know I'm being partisan and forgiving because of the connection to an old favourite, especially as the episode had two writers credited and not just one, but when Veronica Mars ace Diane Ruggiero's name appeared in the credits, hope sprang up. I was rewarded with two good scenes. The main one had Donald Sutherland acting the paint off the walls as he confronts the duplicitous Jill Clayburgh. Finally some life! Shame that the increase in emotional truth came at the expense of revelation. Instead of Clayburgh revealing which of the Darling children was fathered by Peter Krause's dad, we got an exchange that went something like:

Sutherland: Will you tell me?
Clayburgh: I will tell you!
Sutherland: Will you?
Clayburgh: Yes, I will!
Sutherland: Really? Because I really want to know!
Clayburgh: Yes!
[Cut to commercial]

I get that not immediately revealing who is lacking Donald Sutherland's DNA is a way of creating tension in the family, and leaves the room open for a big revelation later in the series, but it just sounded laboured and mechanical. Also good was Zoe McClellan (whose boobs made a startling return in several scenes) confronting Natalie Zea over her previous relationship with Krause.


As far as I'm concerned, the only interesting plot is between Nick and his wife, and the threat of his work and past coming between them. Again, it's nothing new, but the Darlings are odious enough to give the marriage plot some heft. It would be horrible for their relationship to be broken up by such a bunch of poorly written, illogical caricatures. Plus, it's much more intriguing than the endless and record-breakingly tedious rivalry between Samaire Armstrong and Seth Gabel's girlfriend. I'm so uninterested I can't be bothered to Google the name of the actress. Sorry, miscellaneous actress. I'm sure you're a lovely person but life is short. Blame the show writers and your life-sappingly dull character, okay?


Seriously, this shit has been going on for three episodes and each week it feels like ten minutes of footage has been accidentally edited in from another show. This show is run by Craig Wright? Who worked on Lost and Six Feet Under? How is this kind of glaring mistake possible? Showrunners! It's killing the show! Drop it now! You just got a week reprieve by adding a shout-out to Explosions in the Sky and hiring Erick Avari (this week playing an Italian. Or a British spy. I wasn't paying much attention). Don't blow this tiny bit of goodwill now.

Also very much improved was Pushing Daisies, which was not just tolerable (see above), but actively entertaining. A lot of the flaws are still there and are obviously never going to go away, and dear God, someone tell the showrunners that they don't have to end their episodes with scenes as showy and silly as that ineptly staged sword fight, but my own personal bugbear (that damnable Sonnenfeld) was absent for much of the episode. While there was still the relentless dollying and repetitive compositions, a lot of the show was simply shot and worked very well. Amazing how distracting it is when a director is shouting, "This is one of my signature shots, bitches! I won't stop until Sonnenfeldian is in the dictionary!!!"


Everything that has almost been working (notably the tone and a lot of the humour) finally came off once the distracting frippery went down a notch, and as a result I could relax and enjoy (Canyon is yet to be convinced, I think). Also great was the resolution of some plots much earlier than expected. Chuck knows about the deadly ramifications of her resurrection, and Olive and her Cleavage of Mass Distraction (seriously, the camera won't stop staring) suspects something is up with Chuck's appearance at the Pie-Hole. I thought that stuff would come up later, once more one-off mysteries were solved, but we're rattling through plot options at a faster pace that expected. This either means there is more to the central premise and Ned's powers than expected, or they're going to have O.C. Syndrome, with all of their good ideas burnt out after one season. Fingers crossed it's the former.

I'm afraid to say that while pretty much every show we watched this week shook up their game after a start-of-season warm-up, Bionical Woman remains the low point of the TV week. There are new writers coming in, and NBC are obviously committed to the show, but will they bother to make it good and popular instead of lazy and popular-enough-to-get-by? I'll stick with it in case it does suddenly improve in quality, like, a thousand-fold, but until then we're forced to put up with writing, acting and directing that would have shamed the silly 70s original. Though at least this version did feature Jaime kicking the homophobe across the room a couple of times.


That was kinda fun. Apologies for linking to the AV Club again, but Sean O'Neal skewers everything that is wrong with the show much more succinctly than I can. The only interesting thing brought up by this episode was the curious moment where the brat sister sleeps through a car alarm outside. The pilot originally featured Mae "AnnHog from Arrested Development" Whitman as Jaime's deaf sister, but it was changed after testing badly (dammit!). Does this scene hint that her sister is going deaf? It would make sense after the comments about the possibility of congenital disease in the Summers family tree last week. Perhaps the showrunners had an arc about deafness and bionical implants in mind. That would be interesting. Other than that, only counting Katee Sackhoff's use of the following expression is keeping us diverted during the show.


As for the other shows this week, Friday Night Lights is still the highlight, even with the horrid muder plotline, but that has been subsumed, at least for now. 30 Rock was not as good as last week, but that is no criticism, considering how good that episode was. The funniest moment of the week came during The Peter Serafinowicz Show, but I'll leave that for Canyon to talk about. Also on BBC was the new series of Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection, featuring everyone's favourite baby-faced cooking savant, which I had been looking forward to. Just to be really annoying, our Sky+ box decided to delete it after it had recorded. If anyone reading this has a Sky+ box, I strongly suggest you renew the warranty after a year. These damnable things fall apart quickly.

Angered by this, we decided to give the BBC's much vaunted iPlayer a try, seeing as how it allows you to watch certain shows up to a week after they have aired. It's supposed to be easy to use, but it took forever to install the player (for a long time we couldn't as there were "technical difficulties" on their end), and when we finally had, and had downloaded the episode (which took ages), it played for about 4 minutes and then offered up a series of randomly selected freeze-frames with a voice over. Okay, we have a crappy laptop that sometimes freezes up when we're using Winamp, but yesterday it was working fine. Only iPlayer malfunctioned. So I don't get to see the damn show. If the BBC is going to have to show more repeats now, can it hurry up? I'm sick of missing stuff.

Other shows we didn't watch but will eventually; Dexter, Journeyman (apparently saved from cancellation for a little while), Viva Laughlin (the worst show ever made, from what I've heard. Can't wait!), and Mad Men. We're very behind on that, and will get around to catching up, especially as the season finale appears to have blown everyone's mind. It didn't appeal to us much early on (we get that things were different back then, so please stop showing lots and lots and lots of smoking), but we're willing to give it another try. It may have improved. Tell Me You Have Suddenly Started To Love Me is a case in point. The show format did not appeal to us at all, but slowly we've come to look forward to it every week. Not much has changed, but with enough care and attention to character growth and gentle, Lost-paced revelation, it has snagged us. That's not to say it's amazing, but we've still turned a corner on it, and if anyone asks for a recommendation we will give it (though stressing how long it takes to grab the imagination). That said, what did they do to Ronny Cox?


My heart sank a little when I saw him. He looks like a 900-year old hobo! Let's hope it's his character and not something more serious. Here is where I would put a sad-faced emoticon, if I were so inclined.