BLUE MAG

If any show can become a hit after a move to Friday nights, it’s the fantastically written and beautifully put together “Friday Night Lights.” Simply put this is the very best network drama, probably the best in at least a decade.

The one thing that I think will be this show’s saving grace is that I really can’t see it becoming too full of itself. For one thing, it is shot on location in Austin, which must keep things in perspective and I would assume is owed much of the praise for the show’s depth. To hear the hardest working cast in show business tell it, they love this show and believe in it. Networks tend to either ignore shows or ruin them by interfering. All the “McDreamy” crap on “Grey’s Anatomy” absolutely ruined what started out as a unique and well crafted show. (I suppose ABC doesn’t deserve all the blame for that.) NBC will do their best to turn this into a “hot teen drama” or something but here’s hoping they see that they have something special here and leave it alone.

Continue reading “Friday Night Lights”: Last Days of Summer (2×1)

I would attempt to express my outrage at last night’s craptacular episode by aping Seinfeld (”What is the deal with these writers?” Eh, it never was my strong suit) but frankly I’m too disappointed to be cute. This was by far the worst episode of “30 Rock” and part of me hopes they get canceled for it. Didn’t Jerry Seinfeld used to be a funny person? He definitely sucked the funny out of the room last night. I think a little bit of me died inside.

Seriously, this was extremely disappointing. Pretty much everybody who has reviewed “30 Rock” has said that the pilot was bad and that the show improved, but at least the pilot episode made me laugh. Last night’s episode was like watching candy fall into a vat of shit. You want to be excited because it’s candy, but you can’t ignore the fact that it is coming into contact with shit. It was so bad it is actually making me angry at 10:30 in the morning the next day. I did not laugh one time. Please Tina Fey, be more funny next week.

Two episodes in, I’m still enjoying “Chuck” juuuust enough to want to keep watching. Trolling around the interweb I’m sensing that “Chuck” is not high on the list of favorite fall shows. The pilot was bad, people seem to say, and episode two was horrible.

Not to say that “Chuck” is anything groundbreaking, or even a good show. If you’re going to do a spy spoof, you have to play it spoofy, which “Chuck” does not seem to understand. It takes itself just a smidge too seriously. In the second episode, the badguy Dr. Zarnow tells Sarah “I’m going to take you somewhere where I will torture you!” Seriously, he says that. If you’re reached the point where you’re going to torture them, the subject of your torture is onto you. You say things like “we have ways of making you talk.” Duh. I don’t think they thought the line would come off as funny and spoofy; it’s just lazy writing.

Continue reading “Chuck”: Chuck vs. The Helicopter (1×2)

I don’t usually like to get that heavy handed with my recommendations (if you couldn’t tell after reading my review of “Gossip Girl”) but with the excellent news today that AMC has ordered up a second season of “Mad Men” I’d like to throw this out there: You should be watching “Mad Men.”

Set in the late 50s, it centers on Don Draper, an advertising executive with a fictitious agency. The anachronistic attitudes toward women, the non-stop smoking, the repressed family life, it’s all there in its melodramatic retro glory. The writing is top notch, the acting superb. It is a fine show and you should give it a shot. Catch up on torrent and be ready for season 2 when it comes down the pike next summer.

All of you who took the odds on “will Don also review ‘Gossip Girl’?” played the safe money. Hey, it’s on TV, isn’t it?

We’re not here to debate the relative morality of television. I will leave it to the philosophers to debate whether it is a good idea to watch “Gossip Girl” from a philosophical standpoint. Sure, it bothers me that 11 year olds are probably going to watch this. I, however, am not 11 years old, nor would I let my children watch this show. Furthermore, there is a definite “oogy” factor to the sexual content of this pilot, but overall it’s tame enough for prime time, as they say.

Continue reading “Gossip Girl”: Pilot

There are a lot of things that don’t work about “The Big Bang Theory.” For one thing, I don’t know any actual people who could be described as super nerds but if I did I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be like these two characters. The dialogue is obviously supposed to sound super smart, and I’m not saying it was below my intelligence level or anything, but for the most part it falls flat. The peripheral nerd dialogue falls flat too–why would these guys not have seen “Battlestar Galactica” season 2 yet?

Continue reading “The Big Bang Theory”: Pilot

Lines of dialogue that almost made me stop watching “K-Ville,” in order of appearance:

“I’ll see you later at the gumbo party!”

[sketchy fisherman suspect] “I swear, I didn’t see her!”
[heroic detective] “Then how did she get this in her dressing room??” (holding up a giant handful of fishing worms)

[uniformed cop] “They found lots of drugs in her car.”
[heroic detective] “Nuh uh, no way, she didn’t do that stuff…any more.”

Continue reading “K-Ville”: Pilot

My main problem with “Chuck” is that I don’t believe for a second that a real-life Chuck who looks like Zachary Levi would not be as they say, “swimming in it.” By “it” I mean girls, with the kissing and the brassieres and the whatnot. Sure he’s sort of nerdy, he plays video games, and he doesn’t have a kickass job, but he’s he’s sarcastic and shy, super cute and fit-looking, and he dresses cool. Not buying it.

However “Chuck” does seem like a pretty fun show. Continue reading “Chuck”: Pilot

Kevin McKidd from HBO’s “Rome” stars in this one in the Scott Bakula role. I kid the McKidd. (”Quantum Leap” was awesome though.)

“Journeyman” is set in San Francisco, and McKidd plays a newspaper reporter who one day accidentally time travels… all the way back to 1999!!! He watches in horror as his fellow San Franciscans engage in such confusing wayback behavior as watching the Niners win that playoff game on an awesome Terrell Owens catch a few years ago. Again I McKidd, although it is sort of lame that they only have Journeyman going back a few years at most. I want to see him do absinthe with Ambrose Bierce or save Willie McCovey’s marriage. Or maybe an awesome sweeps week two-parter where Journeyman goes back to the 1906 earthquake.

This is a good show, however. Continue reading “Journeyman”: Pilot

My second pilot review is NBC’s “Life.” It was bold to start this series with Life solving such an oogy crime as the murder of a 12-year old boy (Note: For the purpose of this review, I’m going to call the main character “Life.”). But I think it ups the ante a bit and helps create an interesting balance of serious procedural crime and light quirkyness for this high-concept show. The concept: Life was framed for an as-yet-unspecified crime, and spent 12 years in jail. He is now out, exonerated, and he has millions due to a settlement, but his wife has left him. Also he read up about Zen while in the pokey and that makes him quirky. (I hope you’re enjoying my calling him Life as much as I am.)

Continue reading “Life”: Pilot