Updates on Previously Review Shows

Men in Trees has a lot of heart to it. Its characters are getting more fleshed out, and this week's was the first episode in which the parallels weren't really jammed down out throats. Sure, it's gonna be sappy and hackneyed sometimes, but sometimes I like sappy and hackneyed. I really do. I'm bumping this show up to a solid B+.

Studio 60's second episode was utter dynamite. Best line? Matthew Perry turns on the clock in his office which counts down to the start of the next show and says "No wonder Wes (the previous showrunner) went nuts." A ticking deadline-clock can be the scariest thing for a writer, particularly if you've got no ideas. The episode's got a lot of good jokes and insights--Harriet (Sarah Paulson) asks her ex (Matthew Perry) why she got a laugh when she asked for the butter in one sketch at the read through but not at the dress. He tells her not to worry about it. She presses him. He responds "At the readthrough, you asked for the butter. At dress you asked for the laugh." Very good stuff. Oh, and it featured a play on Gilbert and Sullivan, and anytime you've got G&S going for you, you get at least a half-a-letter grade bump. Overall? Up to a solid A.

The Class was far funnier when not powering through it's stultifying premise. The playfulness between Andrea Ander's character and the carpenter/HS sweetheart is quite nicely done and the show's got some good laughs. The Warbler sisters continue to be great, Jason Ritter is improving and Richie didn't even bother me that much this week. That said, the gay-husband subplot's gotta go. So boring, so crappily done. Hopefully it'll become either interesting or funny, and right quick, too. Overall? B, but I'm still waiting for it to deliver on its potential.

Standoff continues to be excellent. It's a procedural, sure, but it's got more going on upstairs and more and better humor than almost any other cop show. So I'm gonna keep watching it, and I'm gonna stick with my grade of A-. I really believe in it. Perhaps I'm blinded by how well Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt click, but still. Good stuff, says I.

Help Me Help You (8,30, ABC, Tuesday)

This is the new Ted Danson vehicle. I've liked Danson in the past, making me one of the few people our age who liked Becker, and one of the few to even give him a chance to be anything other than the Sam Malone we spent ages 0-10 with.

That said, I don't know about this show. It reminds me a lot of Emily's Reasons Why Not--single camera, non-traditionally structured, text gets thrown up on the screen, similar color palate--but the writing, which I panned (HARD) w/r/t Emily's Reasons Why Not isn't nearly as lazy. Which doesn't mean it's not lazy, but that it does have a few surprises. For example, in the pilot, Danson gets hammered and in his drunken stupor, goes to his house and gets in bed with his wife, except that he's seperated from his wife and also in the bed is her car-dealer boyfriend. Pretty funny, the way it played out. Alright, but I guess I should give you premise, first.

Premise: Danson is a group therapist whose patients have adventures as he triest to help them. He also has adventures because his life is fairly screwed up. (His college-aged daughter is dating an almost-exact replica of himself, he's seperated from his wife, etc.) But he's a pretty good therapist, and the assignments he gives his group play out in different ways depending on each of their own individual problems.

Fair enough. The problem is that when the show's not dealing with Inger, the Aspergersian computer-genius girl (who's Asian, by the way. I know! Who saw that coming?!), or the new guy in the group, it's just not very funny. And that's the cardinal sin of comedy: be funny or go home. The laughs could pick up as they're not trying to lay so much groundwork next week, but I'm not holding my breath.
Preliminary Grade: C-

I've only watched the first epsisode of Six Degrees, though two have now aired, so this review will be a little behind if you've been watching.

Six Degrees (9,00C, ABC, Thursday)

Everyone's seperated from everyone else by no more than six interpersonal connections, so they say. "They" being the narrator, who chimes in with this purported premise of the show. The problem is that instead of the characters being seperated by no more than six connections between people, they've instead got six characters seperated by a very few degrees, so this title, Six Degrees, really doesn't make much sense in context. Anyway, that's nitpicking. So there's six leads, three male, three female. There's ex-junkie Photographer guy, Advertising Lady, Erika Christensen as an ex-con who works now as a nanny, an assistant district attourney guy, Hope Davis as a journalists' war widow who's trying to get her shit together and a down on his luck gambler who drives a car and may or may not go to work for his drug-dealing brother.

In the first episode, Christensen meets ADA guy, then decides to try and run from her criminal past, goes to work for Hope Davis who befriends Advertising Lady who wants to work with ex-junkie guy. ADA guy asks Driver guy to help him out as he's trying to find Christensen and helps him fight off his bookie's goons. Driver guy's brother, meanwhile, gives him a photo of Christensen to look out for in his travels around the city, though he and ADA guy don't know they're looking for the same person. Advertising lady tries to hire ex-junkie photographer guy who yells at her about being a sell out, but then we find out that's just because he has lost his photography mojo, which he gets back in taking a picture of the sobbing Hope Davis as they cart away her husbands belongings, which she's just gotten around to boxing up. Got all that? Oh, and advertising lady's fiance is cheating on her. And ADA guy and Christensen run into each other on the train right after he gives up looking for her.

See, complicated and random, which = deep, right? THAT = DEEP, RIGHT?

If you're a first year a Swathmore, maybe. However, right now it's mostly just convoluted. And pointless. Which is not to say that people meeting semi-randomly in New York can't be done well--one of my favorite books (John O'Hara's BUtterfield 8) does it magically. It also did it seventy years ago. So they better do somehing new and interesting with this setup in order for it to be worth noticing. They haven't yet.

And the acting's pretty bad, particularly from the usually solid Christensen. Hope Davis couldn't be not-amazing if her life depended on it, so she, of course, does a great job, but her and photographer guy are the only two characters that aren'tsort of crappy blank slates right now. And sure, they could fill them in. They could. Will they? I dunno, yet.

The bigger question is, will America fall for complicated and random = deep? That they will is the lesson that show-runners seem to have taken away from LOST, but the farther we get into LOST the more it's looking like it's anything but random, and it may turn out to be drastically simple rather than manically complicated. A show like this, which strives for a level of versimilitude? Will it work without even the hope of a reasonable explanation as to why these rediculous coincidences happend / continue to happen?

Overall grade: C-, so far. I'll be the first to admit that if they do some good character development, though, it could be good. And the first to point out that if they don't, it will flame out horribly, unless everyone is dumb (which they are).   

Five Best Rock Songs, All Time
Visions of Johanna by Bob Dylan, "Blonde on Blonde"
Pyramid Song by Radiohead, "Amnesiac"
Dry the Rain by The Beta Band, "The Three E.P.s"
Goodbye Sky Harbor by Jimmy Eat World, "Clarity"
When the Levee Breaks by Led Zepplin, "IV"

With honorable mentions to Taxman (The Beatles, "Revolver") and Angel (Massive Attack, "Mezzanine"), Down in Flames (Semisonic, "Great Divide").

Regarding the inclusion of Goodby Sky Harbor: I FUCKING DARE YOU to drive down a highway, into the rising sun, in a major American city while listening to that song and not feel something amazing inside yourself. Seriously. No song better captures the rhythms of travel (planeflight, in particular) as well as the anticpation and violence of leaving ... a situation. So choice.

Five Best Movies, All Time
Diner
Lawrence of Arabia
Manhattan
8 1/2
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

w/ HM to Groudhog Day and Teorema

Five Best Albums, All Genres
Kind of Blue, Miles Davis
Giant Steps, John Coltrane
Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan
Ben Folds Five, Ben Folds Five
Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen

Five Best Gilbert and Sullivan Songs
When the Foeman Bares His Steel, "The Pirates of Penzance"
Poor Wand'ring One, "The Pirates of Penzance"
When Our Gallant Norman Foes, "The Yeomen of the Guard"
A British Tar is a Soaring Soul, "HMS Pinafore"
Loudly Let the Trumpet Bray, "Iolanthe"

Five Best Digits
3
7
9
0
1

Five Best Novels (I've Read)
The Human Stain, Phillip Roth
Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
Shopgirl, Steve Martin

HM to Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz

Five Best Collections of Short Stories
Like Life, Lorrie Moore
Werewolves in Their Youth, Michael Chabon
In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway
The Middle of the Night, Dan Stolar
Fitting Ends, Dan Chaon

Five Foxiest Ladies
Famke Janssen
Bebe Neuwirth
Lauren Graham
Mary Lousie Parker
Jodi Lyn O'Keefe

Five Best Prematurely Canceled TV Shows
Sports Night
Futurama
Commited
Reunion
Arrested Development

Five Best Shows Currently on TV
The Office
How I Met Your Mother
Lost
House
Grey's Anatomy

Five Best, After Those Above
Studio 60
Criminal Minds
My Name is Earl
Standoff
Men in Trees

Five Best Looking Shows Yet To Premire
30 Rock
Friday Night Lights
The Nine
(empty)
(blank)

As of... Thursday I've lost 70 lbs since I started in Februrary.

For those of you not so good at math, this now means that I am 2/3rds the weight I was then.

Smith (9,00C, CBS, Wednesday)

Smith stars the startlingly-blank Ray Liotta as the leader of a group of high-tech, high-planning thieves. His group includes the foxy-girl (specialty: identity theft, fake documents) played by Amy Smart, the British guy she used to date, the weapons/sniper guy (the scrumptious Simon Baker), the electronics expert, et cetera. Really, the long and short of Smith was that it was kind of boring.

Electronics guy gets killed toward the end, and we're supposed to care because he's got a wife and a kid and a gambling problem but one of the other guys likes the wife, too, and so I guess that's important and I'm supposed to care? But really, you kill a character at the end of your first hour and that character gets an extensive musical-montage that's supposed to make you feel sad about his death? Doesn't really work. And it doesn't help that Ray Liotta's blanker than an empty slate--and not in a "he's really doing something with this character," but more in a "does he know he's on camera?" kind of way.

There was one surprise in the episode, I'll give it that. I didn't figure that Virginia Madsen's wife-of-Ray-Liotta was going to be a recovering addict. I'll admit it. And we don't yet know if Liotta knows that she's an ex-junkie, just as we don't know if she knows he's a theif or if she just suspects.

Anyway, Smith kind of licked. I'll watch episode two, but unless it's whiteknuckled for at least part of the time, this show'll be one of the first to go. If this show succeeds, where Heist failed, I'm gonna be super-pissed.
Preliminary Grade: D+   

Studio 60 (9,00C, NBC, Monday)

Formerly "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," the show chronicles the lives of the cast and crew of an LA-based SNL clone called, wait for it, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." After the Judd Hirsch has a melt-down, and lets loose a Network-style rant on the crapification of TV/culture, he gets canned. Brought in to replace him are former Studio 60 leading lights writer Matt Albie (Matthew Perry) and director Danny Tripp (Bradly Whitford), who had been heinously backstabbed by Judd Hirsch previously and canned by Supra-Network Entertainment Exec, played wonderfully soullessly by Steven Weber. Amanda Peet's new-network head Jordan McDeere fought for them to get back in. Got that? Also: Albie used to date one of the show's big three stars, played by the absolutely tremendous Sarah Paulson. Whose character is all about Jeebus.

So, the cast is top notch. What about the writing and directing? Oh, have I failed to mention yet that the show's being written, produced and directed by Sports Night and The West Wing dream-team Aaron Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme? Oh, I hadn't mentioned that, you say? Well there it is. These guys are simply the best. Simply the best. And they work so perfectly together. Bonus: the production company they run is called Shoe Money productions, presumably after the Sports Night episode.

So, the writing and directing are great, the cast is fantastic, what's left to fail, then? All that's left is the premise. There's been a lot of handwringing in the press lately over whether Studio 60 will be too 'inside' the entertainment industry for people to get it / like it / want to watch it, week after week. I find it funny that most of this worry comes from people inside the entertainment industry. Perhaps it's reflexive self-doubt so if they get rejected it doesn't hurt so bad. And might I remind you, when The West Wing first aired, there was a lot of concern that it would be far, far too inside politics to attract a wide audience. And those concerns turned out to be wrongheaded, because, bottom line, if you put on a good show, people will watch.

The main difference that you can feel here, though, between S60 and tWW is that S60 lacks the same capital-G Gravitas that tWW oozed. And sure, they're not deciding the fate of the world here, but most shows aren't. All that matters for Sorkin and Schlamme to make it work is that the characters believe what they're doing is important--c.f. Sports Night. Everytime some character would say "But it's just sports...." they had a character there to give an impassioned rebuttle. And though Sports Night got canceled, sure, that doesn't mean that they didn't make you believe it mattered.

Anyway, we'll have to see how the show develops. I was underwhelmed by the pilot itself, but that's because there was negative-no dramatic tension--the setup was: Will they or won't they take the job? Well, there wouldn't be a show if they didn't take the job. So, the question is, was I entertained even without a dramatic arc? And the answer's yes. Hopefully I'll be more entertained next week, but we'll see.

Studio 60 (9,00C, NBC, Monday)
Preliminary grade: B+, but that could go significantly up after weeks 2 & 3.

The Class (7,00C, CBS, Monday)

Conceived and produced by two of the best writers/E.P.s in the history of television comedy, David Crane (Friends--with Marta Kaufmann and Kevin Bright) and Jeffery Klarik (Mad About You--with Paul Reiser), the Class is a big test for these guys. Does their pedigree guarantee a good show? The short answer is: probably not. But it apparently encourages a complicated premise: "Third grade class-mates are reunited twenty years later, first for a party and then for ? ."

This complicated premise is pretty much the opposite of Crane and Klarik's previous shows' obvious (and amazing) simplicity: "Hey, we hang out and drink coffee" and "We are two people who are married." And that simplicity (and some great writing) carried each of these shows through the first half of their runs (the second half, well, that's a different story).

And almost no comedy has a consistently great first season--the characters are awkward sketches, the showrunner hasn't found the series' voice yet, the writers are facing a blank page every week (the scariest thing to do as a writer). The series that do have a killer first season are the ones that have a startlingly simple premise: This is how I met your mother. We drink coffee and date a lot. A bunch of crazy people work at this radio station. I write for a bigtime TV variety show. A bunch of crazy people work at a hospital.

And they've got creators that deeply care about this particular material that they're presenting. Mad About You's first season works because the show is a simple extension of Paul Reiser. Friends' first season is brilliant because you can feel the experience that Kaufmann and Crane bring to the show: they lived in NY in their early twenties with their friends as their closest family. You think Klarik or Crane ever reunited with their former third grade classmates to commemorate the anniversary-of-meeting of two of the members of that class who recently ran into each other and are  engaged but then she breaks up with him during the party?

I don't think so either. Much of how this show ends up going depends on how much Crane and Klarik believe in what they're writing, and the pilot relied to heavily on joke stereotyping: We get it, he's depressed. She can't tell her husband's gay like her heart-breaking prom-date was/is. Move along, please. Lazy writing this early is a bad sign, but maybe they felt like they needed to make sure you remember each of their 9 leads after the first episode, and in 22 minutes you can really only get one defining characteristic of each.

Now, I'll admit, I loaded the deck here, comparing it to Friends and Mad About You, sure. But how does The Class turn out compared to the funniest multiple camera shows of the past decade? Not well, sure. Not yet, at least. In opposition to the Friends/MAY model wherein the show gets lost after about four seasons of knock-down, drag-out hilarity, there's a show like Seinfeld or The Office (American) which takes a few years, in the case of the first, or one year, in the case of the second to find its voice and style. But you'll notice both of those shows have their own, intensely unique view-point. Is it possible for two grizzled TV veterans to come to such a unique outlook? I'm not sure they can.

And you'll notice I've yet to name a single actor or talk about a single performance by an actor. That's because this show will sink or swim based solely on the strength of the writing. With nine characters, no actor or pair of actors can save/change/carry the show. The writing's going to have to be great across the board. Lizzy Caplan does a pretty tremendous job as Lina Warbler, but I'd watch Lizzy Caplan read the phone book. Despite this, and good performances for Lina's sister and by Andrea Anders, I'm still concerned about the over-abundance of characters. The show's far too fractured right now. Nine main characters in 22 minutes? How will we keep up with all of them? How will we care? What's to keep me watching when my favorite two or three are uninvolved? (Another part of the genius of Friends--everyone gets a story every week.)

I don't know if The Class will end up working, but I'm gonna keep watching. Lizzy Caplan is too great not to watch, and as it breaks down into more digestible chunks--it managed to be funny at times even when smashing through its convoluted premise--it should get far more fun. I'm not sure what'll happen to Andrea Anders' character as the initial will-they/won't-they gets significantly more complicated at the end of the first episode. And I'm curious enough to want to find out.

Overall? A recommend. Agreeable three camera comedies are hard to find (c.f. last week's reviews of 'Til Death and Happy Hour) and you should watch this one and let me know what you think.
Preliminary series grade: B+

Read Night Math.

Read Grace, he called it.

Men in Trees stars Anne "I'm so crazy you should be afraid of me even though we don't live in states that touch each other" Heche. And she doesn't do a half-bad job. She plays a 'relationship coach' whose mega-selling book "How I Got Happy and How You Can Too" just launched her career into mega-stardom. And landed her an advance on "How I Got Married and How You Can Too" which she's about to dig into writing. You can tell her career's going well, by the way, 'cause she's got speaking engagements all over the place, one of which is in Alaska! On the way to Alaska, she discovers she's accidentally taken her fiance's laptop! And he convieniently has placed a slideshow on his desktop! And she opens it and clicks throught it! And for some reason, the first three pictures are of her and him together! And then the next two are of him making out with a friend of hers! For some reason!

Long story short, she decides to set up shop in the Alaskan town that's got a 10-1 man:woman ratio to write her newly repurposed third book: a book about men.

This bit of extreme deus ex-machina aside, the details of this show work pretty well. Well, alright, scratch that. They are at least interesting. For example, in the huckster-spiel they show her doing, she says that women should look out for the 'signs,' and she holds up road signs, warning them that they won't be able to 'merge' if .... that they won't be able to 'merge' if... I forgot the second half of the "joke" but, I assure you, it was another repurposed traffic sign. Which dovetails nicely to the fact that she doesn't see a sign that men are at work and nearly gets hit by a falling branch. What does this sign say, you might ask? Answer: "Men In Trees." I know. I know. It could be worse, though, it could be what occurs in the next paragraph of my summary. You ready for it? Get ready. Seriously. Alright:

She has to fight a racoon for her now-useless 10,000$ wedding dress. I know. I'm sorry.

The best part of the pilot, though? When she gets it explained to her how women undermine men because they expect everything: a though-guy who is sensitive but not too sensitive--just sensitive enough. She responds to this revalation with "So you guys are kinda screwed, huh?" Very nicely written an executed, if a little awkwardly placed in the episode. (Jerry from E.R. is the guy that explains it to her. But to me, he'll always be Kubiac from Parker Lewis Can't Lose. That's right, I busted out the Parker Lewis Can't Lose reference. And I'd do it again.)
They're running the pilot again tonight (Friday) at 7,00, and a new episode at 8,00, so... tune in maybe perhaps?
Grade: C+. Worth watching if you've got nothing else to do.

italisizy: Yeah, I know, right?
Serves me right for buying GM.

kenyl74: HA!
I wasn't going to say it, but I'm glad we're on the same page.

italisizy: Yeah, no this's retarded, particularly if it's just a faulty oxygen sensor like my father suspects.

kenyl74: Yeah, can't Americans make non-shitty products?

italisizy: Usually GM does just fine--not great, but OK--this, though, is uncool.

kenyl74: I concur. So you're going back to the dealership tomorrow sometime?

italisizy: That's the plan for now, though we've not worked out a schedule for it yet.

[later]

italisizy: So, yeah. Now we're talking about taking it in at some point on Saturday. So, long story short: my weekend will be a different kind of entertaining than I was hoping for.
Oh, and I think I'm getting sick.

kenyl74: That blows.
Scummy high school kids.

italisizy: So, yes, in conclusion, everything's coming up Milhouse.

Now I'll review two new comedies.

'Til Death (FOX, Thursday, 7,00)
'Til Death is the new comedy starring Brad Garrett of Everybody Loves Raymond 'fame.' He is funny. Sometimes. He could be funnier here, if the writing was just a little better and the editing didn't lick hole. Joley Fischer plays his wife. She was very funny back in the day when she was on Ellen. Well, alright, she wasn't the funny part of Ellen. Ellen was pretty funny, and you could see the potential of now-two-time-Emmy-winner Jeremy Piven as soon as he joined the cast. But Joley Fischer? Meh. She's alright, and could be far worse, but still. That's the not exactly the ringing endorsement you want. She plays you standard-issue castrating-sitcom-wife with the idiot-husband.
Now, to this show's credit, Brad Garrett's character is an idiot because he's too smart--he's drawn inferences from his own marriage (well, his own stilted view of his own marriage) that he's now imparting all that 'wisdom' to Eddie Kaye Thomas (you might remember him as the erudite one from American Pie) who is now locked in the mortal-struggle of marriage with his new bride. So, basically, through being both not-quite-as-smart-as-he-thinks-he-is and being extra cynical, Brad Garrett will be fucking up things for people every week. There have been worse premises for shows, sure (c.f. the on-coming Jeffery Tambor/John Lithgow trainwreck 20 Good Years) but, so far, the execution has been somewhat lacking. We'll see how the second episode goes, but this show is up against My Name is Earl, and, really, people, c'mon. I'm no Earl worshipper, but it's far, far, far, far, FAR better than this.
Pilot grade: C-
Preliminary show grade: C+

Happy Hour (FOX, Thursday, 7,30)
Paired with 'Til Death is FOX's other new comedy, Happy Hour. I'll make this easy for you all, Happy Hour both a) sucks and b) is up against The Office. Do not watch it. I repeat, do not watch it. And just like I do for my PSAT classes, I'll say it a third time: DO NOT WATCH IT. That is, unless you want some of its horrible side effects, like missing the best comedy on TV, The Office, and anal leakage. That's right, this show gives you anal leakage.
Seriously, it's not that bad, but DO NOT MISS THE OFFICE. The setup: Henry got dumped by the girlfriend he moved to the city with, because 'she's grown' even though she's obviously a shallow twit. So Henry moves in with his neighbor. The actor who plays the actor is so utterly forgettable, I've completely spaced on both his and his character's name. Anyway, the neighbor's roommate just got stolen away from him by a castrating harpy. Haha! That's funny, right! No one's done castrating before on a sitcom! No, wait... that's the OPPOSITE of true! And if you can't even do it even 1/4 as well as Cheers executed Lilith--the all-time queen of castrating (yet hilarious) sitcom women--you just need to shut up and go home. This castrating harpy character is the worst thing that's ever been on TV. I'm not even kidding about that, now that I think about it. I hate her so much. Mostly because the writing she's got, which is pretty shitty and lazy to begin with, gets even further punished by HER COMPLETE LACK OF ACTING TALENT. Anyway, I got dragged off by that. Oh, and it doesn't help that the man she 'stole' (who is named Brad, by the way) is played by THE HORRIBLE Nat Faxon. Man, fuck Brad. Brad sucks. Anyway, so the neighbor vows to take Henry and turn him into 'a better Brad.' He gets his friend Amanda to give Better Brad a job.
And here's where we come to the part of the review where I justify having said "it's not that bad." Beth Lacke does an AMAZING job with the relatively good lines she's given as Amanda. She's very funny and the mannerisms she developed for the character both fit and enhance it. I was quite impressed. She easily steals every scene she's in (after her second scene, but I blame that on pilot-episode-error). Anyway, she delivers the only funny line worth relating out of the entire pilot.
After getting lonely and schnockered together at the party the neighbor throws to cheer Better Brad and Amanda up, Better Brad and Amanda end up in bed together. And the girlfriend comes in and finds them together the next morning. Oh no! Anyway, the girlfriend says something along the lines of how she'll never take Better Brad back now, and Amanda says she needn't bother trying, Better Brad is moving on, and, in fact, she's obviously crazy to let go the best sex that she (Amanda) has ever had. After the girlfriend storms off, Brad thanks her for saying that, especially because he probably wasn't? She replies with a stern "Oh God no." Not teribbly funny or original on paper, but she sold it.
Anyway, I've spent way too many words on this show already. But shows like this one are why I do this: I watch them so you don't have to.
Happy Hour--which is so named because the neighbor wants to bring back Happy Hour. I know, retarded. Anyway--gets a grade of a D+. If you like shitty comedies with one funny lady, go ahead and watch it. But if you're not watching The Office so you can watch this shit-hole-show? We can no longer be friends.

New TV time! I'm bravely watching these new TV shows so we can sort out the stinkers.

Standoff (FOX, Tuesday, 8,00C)

Standoff rocks pretty hard. Sure, you had to get past the pilot episode, which, like most pilot episodes, was a little stilted and still trying to hard to set things up. And here's that setup: Ron Livingston (yes, that Ron Livingston) plays one of the five best crisis negotiators at the FBI, Matt Flannery. The luminescent Rosemarie DeWitt (who I find startlingly attractive--you might recognize her from her role as one of Tom Cavanaugh's girlfriends on last season's too-short Love Monkey) is another fifth of the top-five FBI crisis negotiators. Oh, and their partners. On and off the field, so to speak.

They're working their relationship out (what it will be, how it will go, how serious it is, what its future might be like)--while continuing to be Rock Star crisis negotiation partners--after Matt outed that they were sleeping together during a negotiation. Their boss, played by Alias, Firefly and Angel alum Gina Torres, was none too happy, but is accepting, for now, that there's nothing she can do about it, because they do such damn fine work.

Now, if you're looking for a situation fraught with drama, I can tell you, hostage negotiation'll do pretty nicely. The tension never washes out the character-driven aspects of the show (a refreshing change from "we'll do anything if we think it'll be dramatic" shows like E-fucking-R (for the last six years)) and the show never loses its humor. An excellent match for its lead-in, House. I really, really liked it. And what's not to like? Perfectly crommulent writing, with a terriffic cast, a little psychological action, and, as a plus, it's not on CBS so their's still some color left in the picture.

Oh, and Bobby Beamer from Grosse Pointe Blank plays the head of the SWAT team connected to the unit. Gotta love Bobby Beamer.

Grade: A-

Well, the new Fall TV season kick in tomorrow, more or less, though programs will be premiering in dribs and drabs over the course of the next month or so. But before we get too caught up in these new shows and our returning favorites, we need to take a minute out and pray to the king of prematurely canceled programs.

Dear Sports Night,
We know you provided valuable exposure to some terrific actors in your short run, and for that we thank you. Without you, we might never have seen again Peter Krause, Joshua Malina, Felicity Huffman or that girl who played Natalie. For that we are thankful. We are thankful also that you continue to be available as a DVD box set and we know that while we all do not own it, the ones of us that don't are totally going to follow this link to Amazon right now and at least put you in our shopping carts, because, man, what good writing, directing and all-around story-telling you had, even if only over 45 episodes.

We come to you in supplication at the beginning of this new TV season. We understand that television is a business and as such underperforming shows, no matter how awesome, will be canceled. We accept this, Sports Night, as best we can. But, still, we call upon you and other great shows past, like your nerdy brother Freaks and Geeks and your gleefully retarded cousin, Futurama to help secure our current favorites another full season order.

However, we also understand some shows will be canceled unfairly and that some shows will go inexplicable uncanceled. We pray that you deign to intercede on our behalf and preserve brilliant shows this season, unlike the travesties perpetrated last season on the standouts Reunion, Invasion and Heist. Help us understand that all great TV series go on to play on the big super-station in the sky, regardless of how long their run was and that no matter how many seasons Will & Grace got, it won't ever make in on.

May you please take into yourself this year shows that long ago peaked, such as the absurd E.R., as you did last season when you gave the former heavy-hitter The West Wing, created by your own Aaron Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme, a fittingly excellent final season before sending it off into that good night, even if that night wasn't a Wednesday, like it should've been. And please oversee Sorkin and Schlamme's new TV-related project, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which looks to have boundless potential. Hopefully it will not meet the same end you did.

Though we are still confused and scared by the cancellation of Arrested Development, we implore you to not forsake us and to preserve other off-beat, single camera comedies with underperforming ratings, like My Name Is Earl and The Office, and please let Scrubs return to the glory of its former episodes (showing now in syndication twice a night on Comedy Central) after a wacky and lacking fifth season.

We understand why people think TV comedy is dead, given that shitty shows such as 'Til Death and Happy Hour and 20 Good Years continue to get heavily promoted, but please preserve last season's new-show gem, How I Met Your Mother. May you keep it strong and inventive and not let its new lead-in damage it. May you also preserve all other quality shows from schedule-shift damage, and aid everyone in finding, should they so wish, their local CW affiliate so they might watch a newly renovated Gilmore Girls and/or Veronica Mars and hopefully not Half and Half.

Sports Night, also let us continue to find excellent programs that we may have missed out on thus-far through the amazing phenomenon of DVD on TV, which brought me, personally, winners in the past year such as House.

And finally, if any shows are taken from us, let them be taken with no unaired episodes in the can.

In the name of the the broadcast network, syndication and the DVD box set, we come to you, praying as we have been taught:
Live from New York, I'm Dan Rydel, here alongside Casey McCall, those stories plus...

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Previous prayers for new TV seasons: Fall 2005, Midseason 2005/6.

Axe: Hybrid Women.

Watch the ad before you read my thoughts after the jump.

Continue reading "Hybrid Women" »

Slate, Economics: Parental abortion-notification laws = decrease in risky sexual behaviors = rise in teenage oral sex.
A completely reasonable argument for an intuitive if unintended phenomenon.

Though I can't review everything like I did last fall, I assure you, new TV reviews will be coming as the fall season kicks off.

Still, though, those fall 2005 reviews were pretty good. I stand by both my RAVE about HIMYM and my complete PAN of "The Ghost Whisperer."

Also, Matt's brutalization of "Night Stalker" is classic (though my toss-off derision there-in of "My Name is Earl" turned out to be wrong).

I know that posts of the "Machines to rise up, destroy humanity" type are a little over done, but seriously. They're coming for us. And, of course, we're helping.

Should have some (unrelated) news by Monday. Sorry for the dearth of posting lately. Been having 'stuff' to 'do.'

Also: 50 Cent is the George W. Bush of hip-hop. Just thought you all should know.