BB: How a non-neutral ISP might work
A compelling argument for net neutrality.

H&FJ: Bring Back InterCaps

YDA: The World's Most Amazing Temples

ICHC?: KHAAAAAAN! 

(ABC, Thursday, 9,00)

I'll admit: before the season started, before I had seen one new show, before I had even read all the one-lines from the upfronts, I had already decided that Big Shots was going to be my favorite new show. I mean, what could you not like about a show staring Dylan McDermot (The Practice), Christopher Titus (Titus, stand-up comic), Michael Vartan (Alias), and Joshua Malina (Sports Night, The West Wing). With a cast like that, how could you go wrong, I thought.

But just like I was wrong when I prejudged Dirty Sexy Money, I was wrong when I predjudged Big Shots. I'm sorry to inform, it's not very good. All three men are CEOs of nig corporations, dealing with all of the problems that being super-rich and power entails. So, to hit them quickly:

McDermott has a daughter who's snotty who he's trying to get to know better and a problem with a magazine profile and a tranny hooker.

Titus has a wife that's a shrew. A terrible, terrible shrew.

Malina's got a nice wife, but he's cheating on her with a bimbo. He feels bad because the bimbo is done, but when he tries to end it, before he can, the bimbo decides to go to the wife as pose as an interior designer that he hired.

Vartan genuinely gets the short end of the stick: his wife was cheating on him. With his boss. The boss that was going to fire him. The first thing that goes right for Vartan is the fact that he finds this out at the boss' funeral. And then he gets picked to be CEO on the basis of a nice speech that he gives because of that. ("You can hire someone with a sterling resume, who's never failed at anything they've tried. But you'd be bettr served hiring someone who's lost something. Because he'll make damn sure it never happens again.")

So we feel bad for Vartan. Not so bad for Malina. Or McDermott. The guys seems pretty genuinely slimy, if generally well-intentioned. Titus, despite his shrew-wife hating, seems pretty solid. And Vartan seems like a good guy, but still. The show's got no... life, no anima. Nothing to make it go. No heart, for lack of a better word. It feels like a calculated Desperate Housewives ripoff aimed at men, and because of that, it's got less camp than DH did (but just about every show does, to be fair).

That said, this probably makes it a pretty good match for Grey's Anatomy, which it follows: pretty people doing silly things, but nice and light to fill the 9,00 hour after the melodramatic soup of Grey's.

Big Shots. ABC, Thursday, 9,00. C. 

I almost didn't watch SNL last night, but I tivoed it to watch this morning while getting ready.

And I'm damn glad I did, because the digital short this week turned out to be hilarious.

Spine-rendingly hilarious.

The central conciet: Andy Samberg falls in love with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and, of course, sings him a song.

Fred Armisen gets bearded up to play Ahmadinejad. Startlingly similar, just like "a very hairy Jake Gyllenhall."

Adam Levine of Maroon 5 guests. 

Trust me, just check it out: Iran So Far.
  

(CBS, Wednesday, 9,00)

Dirty, Sexy, Money--a ridiculous, ridiculous title, just so you know--turned out to be hilarious. Quite hilarious, indeed. And not in a "man, that show was so ridiculous I had to laugh" way, like the title may suggest, but in a genuinely funny way.

So, here's the scoop: Nick George (played by Peter Krause of Sports Night and Six Feet Under) is the son of Devlin George, who worked as the lawyer for the Darling family for many, many years. Because the Darlings are super, super rich and kind of screwed up (and because he was having an affair with the mother, Letitia, as we find out in the episode) Devlin sort of half-abandoned Nick on a regular basis, causing much angst. In the present day, Devlin has just died and Nick is offered his father's old position, despite being estranged from (and hated by some of) the family.

So, why does Nick take the job, despite having a family of his own he doesn't want to abandon? Well, the 10 million dollars a year for a private foundation in the name of his father in addition to his hourly certainly helped. As did Nick's secure knowledge that he's not his father and can appropriately balance his home and work, even though working as the Darling family lawyer is a bit of an omnibus position.

The first episode consists in Nick putting out fires all over the city as each Darling has problems. The oldest Darling child, attorney general of NY and about to become senator, has problems with his tranny lover. The next oldest is a girl that Nick deflowered and is still in love with him and is getting married to her fourth stupid, shitty husband, who she knows is stupid and shitty. The next oldest is an Episcopal priest who has illegitimate children and a mail-order Korean wife--and HATES Nick, just like he HATED Nick's father, and is a tremendous asshole. Next you've got Juliet, who's a generic Paris Hilton type but with a conscience. She hates that daddy buys her roles in plays and wants to make it on her own. And the youngest darling is a party-ridden trustafarian scoundrel, who provides some very good opportunities for hilarious rich-person problems: "Dad must hate me; I can't even win a yacht in a poker game without screwing up." Trust me, that's funny.

And the show's funny throughout. When Nick's leading this youngest darling out of the local police station, they're mobbed by cable news reporters, asking increasingly dumb questions, culminating in "Where you planning on harvesting their organs?" Now, I know I've not told you about the context, but why in the world would he be planning on harvesting their organs? And Nick, just like me, reacts in this way, turning to the cable-news reporter--as we've all wished to do on occasion--and saying, baffled: "That's a stupid question. Why in the world would you ask that? You know what? That's it, no more questions."

While I don't like Donald Sutherland (his scenery chewing was obscene in Commander in Cheif), and the Baldwin that plays the future-senator kind of creeps me out in how much he sounds like Alec, you've got to love Peter Krause (even though I dislike his current hair-cut). And though the show misfires when it tries to be more dramatic, there's more than enough good comedy to balance that out. I mean, how can you top a fancy lawyer chasing down and tackling an Episcopal priest and pulling on his ear in an effort to get him to take a statement back?

You can't, so don't try. Just watch Dirty, Sexy, Money, despite that terrible, terrible title.

Dirty, Sexy, Money: ABC, Wednesday, 9,00. A. 

Reviews I've done of new shows:

Chuck: B

Bionic Woman: B-

Life: A

Journeyman: C

Back to You: D

Gossip Girl: Abstained

Kid Nation: C-

Big Bang Theory: C-

Cane: F

Reaper: TBD

Private Practice: B 

(ABC, Wednesday, 8,00)

So, while technically not a pilot, tonight's Private Practice was a premiere, so I'm going to review it.

Private Practice follows Addison Montgomery as she adjusts to life at a new practice: a private practice in LA where she'll see one patient a day, has no staff and no operating room. Quite a change from Seattle Grace Hospital. She works with a bevy of other middle-aged doctors, all of whom have problems of one kind of another. There's the shrink who has her own mental problems, the divorced couple who still work together because the practice needs both of them (he's famous), there's the pediatritian/sex-addict and Tim Daly, an alternative medicine specialist.

If you wanted Grey's Anatomy II: Anatomy Harder, this is not the program for you. Which is to say that it's not a show about pretty young doctors doing exciting things and sleeping with inappropriate authority figures or pretty young people. What it is, instead, is a show about middle aged people trying to get it right while helping their patients out. If that sounds lame, I agree. If that doesn't sound lame to you? Well, you're wrong, but go ahead and watch the show; you'll probably like it.

So, yeah, there were plenty of times that the writing was flat or obvious or the plot dealt with something dumb and I almost turned it off, because what do I care who gets the dead guys sperm? Yeah, and that whole subplot is about the divorced woman learning that she just ought to be nice to her ex-husband, but what do I care about either of them? It's not an emotionally charged situation for me and the show doesn't build it into one. The two characters in this case are placeholders--we should care because they're nice people (or whatever) and it's always sad to se a marriage dissolve into mutual antagony. Except that I don't think that's true and so I don't really give a crap.

So that's one plot, the sperm thing. Then there's Addison's plot, involving her performing, as she later puts it, "crazy MacGuyver surgery" which didn't seem all that crazy or MacGuyverish, particularly as there was no doubt that she was going to do it and she was going to pull it off. So, no drama.

So there's also a subplot about how the boss-lady didn't tell any of the other doctors that she was hiring Addison, which, while it led to the other docs having a nice conversation in the break room, didn't really pay off, because, I mean, seriously? Were they going to vote to reject her? Again, no drama.

And then, despite my best efforts, there was a plot that did, actually, affect me. It involved the psychiatrist dealing with a patient that had degenerated into counting behavior at a local store. Not only did she have to keep the manager from calling the cops, she also had to figure out what went wrong in the woman's head in order to set it off, so she could help her work through it.

And damn if what set the woman off didn't get me to crying. And I fucking hate that, because, alright, I cry at TV sometimes and movie trailers sometimes and books sometimes and so it's not that I'm pissed about crying. I hate that this show that I didn't really like managed to bust into me like that with this fucking three minute segment in an otherwise not-worthwhile program.

But, if you can make me cry, you get a B. That's how this works. I don't recommend Private Practice (unless, like I said, you like the idea of middle aged doctors trying to get it right w/r/t their lives while saving patients) but I've got to give it a B, because damn did that scene work on me, even if the rest was pretty crappy. (Except Kate Walsh, who's always great.)

Private Practice. ABC, Wednesday, 8,00. B. 

italisizy:
http://www.cnn.com/.../09/27/pace.gays.ap/index.html
Hooray America!

Sir Turley: Im not even going to open the link, because it is probably about General Pace

italisizy: Yep.

Sir Turley: what an ass

italisizy: Completely.

Sir Turley: at least he is retiring?

italisizy: Nope.
That's no help.

Sir Turley: is it irony that he dropped a bomb like that and now is cutting and running to retirement?

Cane

(CBS, Tues, 9,00)

Cane was bad. Very back. Movie-of-the-week bad.

Matt asked if it was, as some reviews have said, racist in addition to being terrible.

The answer is: kind of. But more than likely the percieved racism is just a side-effect of the shittiness of the show. So, the characters are inarticulate and over-the-top. It's certainly not hard-racism; I don't think anyone in the process said: "They're Cuban, so let's make sure they're inarticulate and over-the-top." And it doesn't seem like soft racism, either: "Oh, I guess that's the way I wrote them because I guess that's how I think latinos are."

(Should "Latinos" be capitalized? And, consequently, when I break it apart, as I like to do, into "The Tinos" do both (or either?) of those need to be capitalized, too?)

Mostly the it's-kind-of-there-if-you're-looking racism comes from the fact that that show is poorly put together in nearly every aspect. (And the best way to describe how that is is that it looks and feels like a movie-of-the-week. To summarize: there is no redeeming feature to this show: not Jimmy Smits and certainly not Hector Elizondo, and definitely, certainly not Luis from Suddenly Susan.) So, at most, 1/3 actual racism, 2/3 crappy writing/acting/production.

Cane: CBS, Tues, 9,00. F.

// 

Reaper

(The CW, Tuesday, 8,00)

Sam had his soul sold to the devil before he was even born. His parents, in return for a cure for Sam's father's terminal illness, sold the soul of their firstborn. "Fine," they thought, "we'll just not have kids." Through some trickery, the devil ends up making sure they do, and so now, on his 21st birthday, Sam must go to work for the devil returning escaped souls to hell. To do so he's gifted with telekenesis and a bad-ass dirt-devil to capture said souls.

Reaper's pilot was slow. So very slow. But then again, I knew the setup before I started watching and the Devil didn't show up until 20 minutes in. Even so, sloooooow. And the production values seemed weirdly low. Maybe because the local CW broadcast it in standard-def, maybe because the CW didn't want to throw movie-quality money at a pilot, I don't know.

And my tivo cut off the last 20 minutes b/c America's Next Top Model ran long or something. But the show was generally flat and, did I mention slow? But given that it's from Kevin Smith and given that I think the premise has some merit, I'm going to hold off reviewing it for now. But I am going to suggest that you watch the pilot when it re-airs on Thursday, or the new episode next Tuesday (if you're not watching House) and let me know what you think. Where it fails, where it succeeds, why it does either. It's an interesting enough premise to merit your time at least once, I think.

Reaper. The CW, Tuesday, 8,00. TBD. 

Kid Nation

(CBS, Wed, 7,00)

There are times when Kid Nation is the dumbest show on TV, because, I'll say it, kids are dumb. And reality TV is dumb. So add the two together and... viola! So, while watching the first episode, there were moments I didn't want to watch. But there are also times that you can see that it's important.

The basic idea: 40 kids are taken to a pioneer-era ghost-town in New Mexico and told to establish a functioning society on their own, where "establish a functioning society on their own" = "do the things the producers tell them to do, listen (or not listen) to their pre-chosen leaders and work in roles assigned to them by one of the tasks." So, more or less, not so much "establish" as "work within our predefined ideas."

Which, if you were excited at the general possibility that Kid Nation seemed to have to begin with, completely guts the interestingness of the premise.

It is still interesting, though, to watch how kids react in a vacuum. A brace of 14 year old boys uses the town's chalk to mark up the town with pro-their-team slogans and to see the looks of shock and violation on the faces of some of the other kids was astounding. I mean: who got hurt by it? Also: it's fucking chalk. Get some water. Problem solved. But these kids were so morally outraged, it was a real window into what kids think and that they think it for no particular reason.

Unless there's some greater, intrinsic anti-vandalism intuition that I, as a person, am just lacking.

Either way, interesting, if, perhaps, not exactly worth watching.

Kid Nation: CBS, Wednesday, 7,00. C-.

// 

Big Bang Theory

(CBS, Monday, 7,30)

The one-line on Big Bang Theory goes a little like this: SO, this WAITRESS who's really HOT, right? She's really H-O-T-T HOT you know? So she moves in across the hall from these NERDS. I mean they're NERDS, right? No, like, not even, like, nerds. SUPER nerds. And, like, ONE OF THEM, like REALLY thinks she's hot and he, like, thinks he's, like, got a chance with her, you know? And he's a NERD. And she's like SUPER HOT.

Yeah, so that's funny, right? Except that it's not, really. And the thing about this show--the thing about this show!--is that the writing's pretty good. I mean, the nerd stereotypes that 3/4--who am I kidding? 7/8ths--of the jokes are hung on really aren't that imaginative.

But, aside from the nerd-friends, who are really dumb and really poorly constructed and should really be cut from the show, the show's actually kind of funny at times. Worth your 22 minutes at least. Try it out. If you have a high standard for comedy, you probably won't like it. If you like things that, even while dumb, are really kind of funny? Go for it.

Big Bang Theory: CBS, Monday, 7,30. C-. 

Canadian Dollar Reaches Parity w/ US Dollar

A Sacagawea will get you a Loonie. Two Georges will get you a Toonie. (Twonie? Two-nie?)

(The CW, Wednesday, 8,00)

I'm going to do something I've not done with my new TV reviews before. I'm not going to grade Gossip Girl. Because maybe you'll like it, maybe you'll hate it, maybe you'll find the fascination that adults over 30 or so have with teens behaving badly interesting, like I do, or something else.

One thing I know for sure, though: you're not going to watch it.

Problem is: Gossip Girl's been given the hardest time-slot in network TV, Wednesday night at 8,00. That's the hour when Criminal Minds comes back to CBS (Criminal Minds is a top 20 show, if you didn't know, and pretty compelling), and the other four networks are premiering new shows that are expected to do quite well. NBC's got Bionic Woman, FOX has Gordon Ramsay feature Kitchen Nightmares and ABC's anchoring it's new Wendesday with it's Grey's spin-off Private Practice.

Which means that unless 1) you're in highschool or 2) you really want to fantasize about getting with Blake Lively (who's 20 now, so it's OK if you do, I promise) or 3) you're one of the aforementioned adults obsessed with either a) the terrible--terrible!--and immoral--immoral!--things these teens are 'doing' (let us not forget these are actors playing roles of fictional characters) or b) watching teens do terrible things, in what Slate describes as "status-porn" (an interesting take on the whole, though somewhat off), that you're not going to watch it. You're going to watch one of the other four probably good shows on at this time.

So I can tell you how stylish and surprisingly enthralling the pilot was. But you don't give a crap, honestly. And there's nothing I could say to change that.

If you love the CW, you'll watch. It's better than many. Worse than some. Whatever.

Amy's Robot's got a review round-up. 

(FOX, Wednesday, 7,00)

Back to You stars Kelsey Grammer as a wind-bag of an anchor man, who, after working his way up from Pittsburgh to Minneapolis to Cleveland to Dallas and finally to LA gets canned and must return, all the way back down to the bottom, to Pittsburgh, where his co-anchor (played by the hilariously right-wing Patty Heaton) has been the entire time. Oh, and Fred Willard is the sports guy. I hate Fred Willard but fine, whatever.

Back to You, in short, sucks. Sure, there are moments that are nice. But there's so much of it that's so bad or so derivative. First: the news director's twenty five. You know what? I've seen Murphy Brown. The whole twenty five year old news director was done better then, twenty years ago. And while Ty Burrel is better here than he was as a one-dimensional skirt-chaser on CBS terrible Out of Practice, he's still nothing to write home about. He's still just as ass, looking to get ahead. Which pretty much describes all the characters.

Except maybe Kelsey Grammer's character. Oh, sure, he's the assiest of them all. The stupidest, loudest, most annoying. But, it turns out, the one-night-stand that he had with Patty Heaton's co-anchor the night he left town produced a kid, who's now 10 and Grammer's just learned about. This provided the one moment worth watching in the show, when the kid mouths to her dad (though she doesn't know he's her dad) "take me with you" because she's having a fight with her mom and Grammer just smiles. Warm, touching.

And not at all of a piece with the mostly hackneyed jokes that preceded it. A weird feature of the jokes jumped out at me: there'd often be a joke that was not funny and then a minute or two later, a joke of the same form that was funny, involving the same two characters and referencing the last joke. Which would be great, except for the fact that this second joke doesn't somehow make the first joke of the same form funny. It explains to me why you kept the first, shitty joke in the script, but that doesn't mean that was the right call.

Coming from Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, you'd think--you'd think!--they could've done better, but apparently not. And I've seen enough TV programs where the characters are just mean to each other "humorously." And that's the case here: everyone at the station hates everyone else and that's kind of boring. Well, everyone hates everyone else except for weather-girl Montana Stevens-Herrera, who is a whore and so only hates some people.

Back to You: FOX, Wednesday, 7,00. D.

(NBC, Monday, 9,00) 

Due to the wonder of "On Demand" programming, I'm able to bring you previews of some new shows before they actually premiere, meaning you don't just have to trust me as to how good the pilot was: if you're interested, you can watch when it does air and then tell me how much I over or undersold it or how much I, as a person, am terrible. Either way, really.

Journeyman might be OK. Or it might be crap and early canceled. It's too early to tell.

The one-line: Dan takes trips through time to right wrongs and help make the world a better place.

Yeah, so, Quantum Leap meets Touched by an Angel but with no Al or Della Reese.

Except he can interact with his own life in the past, and when he jumps it eats time out of his regular life, causing problems with his own marriage and real life. So that's something new and interesting. And thank crap he's a newspaper reporter rather than a cop.

I dunno, the show seems to do the same thing to traveling through time that Medium did for being a psychic: explore it in a different way than had been done before and really apply itself also to the ramifications for the person's family and personal life while still mainly focusing on righting some wrong.

You know what? The show's well executed, but it's an old gimmick wrapped in a new package. I didn't find any of the stuff focusing on his present day particularly compelling, or how he ended up married to his brother's girlfriend after his fiancee died; I mean, whatever.

That the fiancee (Moon Bloodgood of "Day Break" another show of time-traveling wrong-righting) may be a journeyman like himself?

Now that's intiguing.

Journeyman: NBC, Monday, 9,00. C.

Journeyman premieres Monday, Sept 24th. 

Every fall we offer up a prayer to that greatest of too-early-canceled series, Sports Night, so that it may bring our favorite shows protection during the upcoming TV season.

Oh, Sports Night, we acknowledge your great works in your short time: you showed us that comedy could be dramatic, you showed us that laugh tracks sometimes are inappropriate, even for thirty minute shows, you provided valuable exposure to many fine young actors who we have gone on to greatly enjoy, like Felicity Huffman, Peter Krause, Joshua Malina and that girl who played Natalie and then was on one season of Numb3rs. For these and other things we are thankful.

Dear Sports Night, we come in supplication, with open hearts, with understanding that the TV networks are just trying to do their best when they cancel programs, even if those programs are great and underrated. We understand that even should a program be canceled here, in this realm, that all great shows go on to play on the big TV station in the sky.

Though we also understand that sometimes TV networks err in their decision to yank a show, such as when your own life was cut short, or the runs of your close friends Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks, and the newly ressurected-if-only-in-movie-form Futurama. May we take Futurama and Family Guy as the guiding light you have provided that shows can return, provided we are loyal and loving enough.

But we also understand, Sports Night, that no matter how much we love, sometimes we cannot save a show and that sometimes, a show's time has come too late, like Gilmore Girls, or too soon like with your brother Studio 60. By this token, may you take Scrubs peacefully before it is too late, though it already may be.

We continue to implore you for more new, good comedy, though we are very thankful that you brought us 30 Rock last season, even though I called it wrong to begin with. And we are thankful still that How I Met Your Mother remains on the air as well as the glorious The Office.

We are concerned about some of the choices for new shows this season, oh Sports Night, like Viva Laughlin, a prime time musical (for some reason) and the show Cane, about, you know, sugar cartels and stuff. May you justly terminate any show that does not reach it's potential, like Dirty Sexy Money surely won't, or that does meet it's potential, but that potential is crap, like Cavemen. May Christina Applegate's new show be good, we plead, though her track record is so bad, she remains lovely and likeable.

And finally, if any show need be taken from us, let it be taken with no unaired episodes in the can.

In the name of the the broadcast netword, 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 along side Casey McCall, those stories plus...

(NBC, Wednesday, 9,00)

Due to the wonder of "On Demand" programming, I'm able to bring you previews of some new shows before they actually premiere, meaning you don't just have to trust me as to how good the pilot was: if you're interested, you can watch when it does air and then tell me how much I over or undersold it or how much I, as a person, am terrible. Either way, really.

Life, to put it shortly, figures to be excellent. And I mean, excellent.

The one-line: quirky cop gets released from prison twelve years after he got sent up the river for a murder he didn't commit and rejoins the force.

And he's not quirky in that he's weird. That may seem like splitting hairs, but he's not "I see dead people" like last year's ill-fated Raines or "I am dead people" like this year's New Amsterdam or the other one from this year where the cop's a vampire or even like Bones' "I'm socially incompetent." No, he's quirky in the way the cop who went to jail for twelve years would be quirky: he's damaged from the beatings he took from both the guards and the other inmates, staying sane only by immersing himself in zen.

Now he's trying to stay in the moment, savoring his new found freedom, not in a "I'm going to eat myself sick on Oreos" way--he's no Jarod from Pretender--but, for example, when we meet him, he's savoring the feel of the sun on his face, filmed in bright, vibrant yellows to contrast with the blue and white of his 10x10 Supermax Pelican Bay cell.

The zen isn't a window-dressing, a throw-away signifier trying to angle at the inner peace he's tried to achieve, but rather an important part of the character. When trying to comfort the mother of a murdered son, he says he could tell her a lot of things, but they would be meaningless. She demands that he tell her something meaningful, then. The moment when he comes up with it is one of the best moments I've seen on TV in a while: deep, full of meaning and arising naturally from who he is, who she is and the situation that they've both somehow come to be in. I won't ruin it: you've got to watch it for yourself.

And there's the more comic-relief type stuff related to his imprisonment: he's obsessed with all different types of fresh fruit. And he's got some millions of dollars from his settlement with the department for his, you know, wrongful imprisonment. He can't understand how the handsfree phone in his new car works. He doesn't know what an IM is, etc. But none of this feels hokey or derived from a "just-for-laughs" angle that would've been fairly easy, given the set of circumstances. Instead it seems to derive naturally from who he is because of what he's gone through. I can't stress that enough: it's all entirely natural feeling, and that's something that, in the age of network notes and targeted demographics and so on and so forth, gets lost a lot, I think, if it was ever there.

The only part of the show that feels forced is the storyline involving his partner (Sarah Shahi, transcendent, and of the good-but-much-maligned Teachers) and her history of drug-use. I don't begrudge that it exists--there's got to be a reason she's paired with him--but having the lieutenant lean on her so early to give her something to dismiss our hero over... a little much. Let it develop a little more naturally, writers, and you'll fix the one weak spot of the show so far.

The interactions between him and her, though, are tremendous and fresh and nuanced. Very well executed. Just like, but to a lesser extent, his interactions with his financial manager (Adam Arkin) and his lawyer (the love interest from The Replacements and the ex-girlfriend from Swingers).

All in all: I must demand that you watch Life. The Pilot's an A+. Hopefully the series will be, too.

Life: NBC, Wednesday, 9,00. A+

Life premieres Wednesday, September 26th. 

BB: Burning Man '07 as seen from space.

BBG: Hammocks with a roof.
"Oh, the hammock district."

BBG: Women's spatial acuity improved long-term by first-person shooter playing.

YouTube: Motion-logos.

Dethroner: Increadible video of failed IED attack.
Swearing, but the video itself is amazing.

(NBC, Wednesday, 8,00)

Due to the wonder of "On Demand" programming, I'm able to bring you previews of some new shows before they actually premiere, meaning you don't just have to trust me as to how good the pilot was: if you're interested, you can watch when it does air and then tell me how much I over or undersold it or how much I, as a person, am terrible. Either way, really.

I'll admit it: I've never seen the original Bionic Woman. I know nothing about it except for the following two things: it starred Lindsey Wagner and it was about a woman with mechanical parts. The new series is different in the first respect, the same in the second.

In this version of Bionic Woman, after a horrific accident (which, it turns out, was not so much of an accident) Jamie Sommers (played by hot and apparently British actress Michelle Ryan, who looks a bit like the love child of Liv Tyler and Ione Skye) is given mechanical / nano-mechanical / molecular-machine / "anthrocytes" / something-fancy-sounding-but-ultimately-signifying-nothing limbs and fancy computer implants for her right ear and eye.

These implants are sprung on her by her boyfriend (and her now-miscarried child's father) who works as the surgeon for a biotech company with a menacing sounding name (which I can't, now, remember), which works for the government trying to use these implants to create supersoldiers or aid Iraqi war vets or both, depending on who you believe. But, clearly, it's mostly the supersoldier thing, as these guys are bad-asses.

Working on this project, there's Miguel Ferrer (formerly of Crossing Jordan) as the boss who wants to keep Sommers off the books in case they need to ice her; there's the military training/ninja substitute guy who trains but also works security for/against the subjects. And there's the icy female psychologist, to make sure she doesn't flip out like the last subject (also a woman and who may have had something to do with that  terrible "accident"). The bionic-rival is interesting: she's angular and platinum blonde, in a way that suggests the replicants from Blade Runner and she's bent on killing the surgeon boyfriend.

Oh, and the surgeon boyfriend's name is Anthros, hence the name of the parts inside her, ("anthrocytes") because they were, of course, invented by his father. Who was in jail for some reason. Who got sprung, for some reason, by the guy controlling the bionic rival.

There's definitely moments when the whole things feels like an overblown episode of "The Outer Limits," particularly when they cut to military-training guy driving a speed boat for some reason, or the cheesy visual effects when our hero is escaping by running forty odd miles an hour through the forest. And the guy who plays the boyfriend is a massively shitty actor. Just terrible. And his role's terribly written. When he got shot, I was happy. Very happy.

Good stuff? Her having abilities that she's not sure about the extent of / not sure she can control is certainly a bit Bourne-esque, which is interesting. And the fight scene on the rooftop between our bionic woman and her bionic rival was pretty cool. And while the continuing story involving the father and the rival-controlling guy seems pretty dumb so far, her having a bionic rival, a crazy-ass bionic rival, is actually pretty cool. That she takes care of her sister is cool, but that her sister is a convicted computer hacker could turn terrible really quickly.

It's going to take a few weeks (or upwards of half a season) before we find out if this show's going to be either pretty cool or pretty shitty. So far, it's walking the line OK: we'll see how they do when they don't have months and months to prepare the next episode.

Bionic Woman: NBC, Wendesday, 8,00. B-

Bionic Woman premieres Wednesday, September 26th.

(NBC, Monday, 7,00)

Due to the wonder of "On Demand" programming, I'm able to bring you previews of some new shows before they actually premiere, meaning you don't just have to trust me as to how good the pilot was: if you're interested, you can watch when it does air and then tell me how much I over or undersold it or how much I, as a person, am terrible. Either way, really.

First up is NBC's pre-Heroes dramedy about the extended-adolescence "Nerd Herd" (c.f. Geek Squad) member Chuck who gets every last bit of national security information beamed into his skull in an email from his college roommate, who had gone on to work for the CIA. You can already see the bones both of comedy and of drama forming, can't you?

Anyway, to flesh those bones out a little more, the email gets tracked to Chuck and a gorgeous CIA agent (Yvonne Strzechowski, a dead, dead ringer for Naimi Watts) and a "cold-school" NSA spook (played by Angel's Adam Baldwin) compete to take him in, her by using her, you know, wiles, and him by using brute force.

This, needless to say, complicates the simple life that Chuck's established for himself, with his best friend Morgan (who's far nerdier and more stunted than Chuck could dream of being), his sister (Sarah Lancaster, of "What About Brian," a doctor again this time. Typecasting much?) and her boyfriend, Captain Awesome (Ryan McPartlin, thankfully graduated from "Living with Fran").

Throughout the pilot, we see Chuck constantly pulled from his intertia by one thing or another and toward a more grown up, responsibility-filled but rewarding life, writ large, then, in his need to now assist the foxy CIA agent and bad-ass NSA agent to avert all sorts of terrible goings on.

Despite this nearly explicit metaphornication, the show works. The pilot nicely sets up both the episodic and continuing plot-lines. The humor works--the running joke through the episode about the Czech porn-star computer virus ("So beautiful. So deadly.") worked consistently in a variety of contexts, the sign of a good running joke. The production values are insanely high, lots of near flawless looking stunt-work.

And a dramedy not aimed at middle-aged women (c.f. Desperate Housewives, Ally McBeal, etc) is going to be a nice change. So what I'm saying is that I liked it. A lot. But maybe that's cause I'm super-nerdy and mired in my own inertia. Or something.

Chuck: NBC, Monday, 7,00. B

Chuck premieres Monday, September 24th.

Coming soon: Gamma-ray annihilation lasers.

The Economics of the Surge

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BF: Divide Belgium!

Belgium has no reason to exist and should be divided into two pieces -- one French and the other Dutch. The Economist publishes an article explaining why the country of Belgium should call it quits. Even the Belgian prime minister designate thinks that the French and Dutch Belgians have nothing in common except "the king, the football team, some beers". BuzzFeed is proud to join the movement to break up Belgium.

How strange is it to have rules to set your alarm by?

It strikes me I've only ever met one other person who I know has alarm rules, but the fact is that it's not a typical thing you talk about, the set of considerations that goes into making up how you set your alarm, so maybe there are more.

So, I'd like to poll you guys. Do you have alarm rules? Certain times that the alarm must or must not be set to? If so, what are they? What would happen if you disobeyed them?

Continue reading "Alarm Rules" »

italisizy: Oh, and Dale's a 49'ers fan.

Sir Turley: boo

italisizy: Agreed.

Sir Turley: lame

italisizy: And then he had the stones to goad me about being a Pats fan.

Sir Turley: yeah, that means he was a bandwagoner starting in the early 80;s

italisizy: Yep.
Although, I did get to deliver a sentence today that I never thought I would say.
"I'm not so bigoted as to say that Dale should stop watching football because he's a 49'ers fan. Better to watch football and root for the wrong team than to not like football."
If he was a Denver fan, that conversation would've gone much differently.

Continue reading "Bigots" »

"Schooled" from Carl's Jr.

It's pretty much the opposite of "Baby Got Back."

Except in hilariousness. They are both hilarious.

Both guys really look like Justin Timberlake to me, though.

Weird.

Family Tree of the Indo-European Language's Descendants

Techdirt: Prize Insurance: Insurance policies backed by industries back prizes for innovation.

Confessions of a College Callgirl

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Sorry for the dearth of posting; school, work, you know.

Picking up again when Kathleen leaves and the Fall TV season starts (Sept 24).

Going to be reviewing at least the following new shows:

Chuck

Big Bang Theory

Samantha Who?

Aliens in America

Cavemen

Carpoolers

Kid Nation

Back to You

Private Practice

Kitchen Nightmares

Big Shots

What else do you guys want me to review? Bionic Woman?

The only restriction: I refuse to watch any show about a supernatural detective. Sorry. 

MD4P looks different, eh?

If the revised design doesn't work on your machine, let me know.

Or if you just think it's ugly. 

via DF: Quitting Microsoft Word
Something I've been considering. Seems like a Pages / Writeroom coctail would get the job done and do it better, too.

Salon interviews Terry Gross (and others about her)
Very interesting look behind the curtain.

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Updated iTunes v. NBC-Universal post w/ new link

Still looking for your I'm-so-depressed albums. 

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A note to the ladies, the following are unacceptable:

A) Pairing: "Lyrics are the most important part of music. Always." with "I love Fergie."
Either is fine. Together they are retarded.

B) "Education is really important to me, but I've not finished my degree nor do I have any plan to, nor do I even know what it would be in. But education's super important to me. And I'm 24."