Quick Round-Up: 02/04

Random (interesting) stuff from the world of television:

• I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks that Burn Notice's Fiona is 15 shades of awesome.
• I know this Yale stuff has gotten stressful, but unless B has had some sort of lobotomy, there's no excuse for this behavior: Gossip Girl SPOILER.
• Oh my poor sweet Kyle...
• I don't know why I even tried to watch last week's SNL (hosted by Steve Martin), but I instantly regretted it. I mean, seriously, more MacGruber? Why, God, why? When Laser Cats is far and away the pre-Weekend Update highlight, we've got a serious problem. But, ultimately, I was glad I toughed it out, because during Weekend Update new-ish cast member Abby Elliott unleashed a stellar Angelina Jolie impersonation. As in, she was so good that I spent a few moments wondering if maybe that was the real Angelina after all. And subsequently I've spent a lot of moments wondering why SNL has kept this gem under their hats for so long. They had to have known that this impression was great--I would have used it in the first skit of the night. Or every skit until someone else could come up with something funnier than Laser Cats or whatever annoying character Kristen Wiig is playing.
• I guess sometimes good does prevail over evil? Case in point: Greek SPOILER.
• I don't know who this singer is, and the song is no "Womanizer" (ha!), but the video features Ryan Hansen as a back-up dancer clad in '80s fitness attire. And that is all you really need to know.
• Lie To Me: My love for David Anders (my sweet Sark) has been well documented (by me). And I'm devoted: I stuck it out with Heroes (which was no easy task) until they decomposed/disintegrated him in front of my very eyes. But I just could not take last week's episode of Lie To Me in which DA guest starred. That show is insufferable with a capital "suffer." Granted, I was only trying to watch it during Lost's commercial breaks, but I couldn't even do that! The whole show is: the main investigators ask someone a question, the person answers, the main investigators proceed to verbally analyze every movement the person made while answering, repeat, repeat, repeat. There's only so much that you can take of: "You thrust your chin, which signifies defiance. Then you touched your neck, which signifies lying. Then you looked to the right, which signifies evasiveness. Then you patted your stomach, which signifies that you're hungry. Then you gave us the stink eye, which signifies that you think we're annoying. Etc." If anyone talked to you like that in real life, you'd seriously punch them in the face.
• And I know I'm about a year behind on this (what's a girl without Showtime to do?), but the second series of The Tudors is rocking my world. There's a lot of good television airing right now, but The Tudors is all I want to watch. Oy, how I love Jonathan Rhys Myers! And Natalie Dormer's Anne Boleyn is all kinds of fantastic. I'm considerably distressed by the inevitability of poor Anne getting her head cut off; I want her to stick around forever.
  

  

(photos: usanetwork.com and Showtime)

Premiere Watch '08: Heroes

Heroes: "The Second Coming" and "The Butterfly Effect"

Well, here we go again. I'm not going to lie and say I was at all bothered by the forced 8-month hiatus of Heroes. I took notes on tonight's 2-hour premiere episode for the sake of taking notes, but we all know that the only reason I'm still watching this show at all is because of actors I've loved from other, better shows: David Anders (Alias), Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars), Greg Grunberg (Alias) and now Francis Capra (Veronica Mars).

• Why did Claire think she could shoot Peter with a regular gun? Was she born yesterday?
• Eew, one Peter is enough. I don't need two.
• Ahh, Hiro, I have not missed you at all. Geez, Hiro acts like a 5-year-old. It's ridiculous. "My father left me a DVD before he died. It's about my destiny!!!!" Gag.
• Sylar: "That's all behind me now, like a long night after a bad taco."
• Wait, Maya still here? Crap.
• Mohinder: "I just hope I did the right thing." (I'm sure you didn't.)
• Hiro's dad: "In the wrong hands, this secret could destroy the world." Ok, yeah, great idea then, giving it to Hiro. If his aren't the wrong hands, I don't know whose are.
• Holy crap, this stuff is even stupider than when he was stuck in feudal Japan.
• Yep, Hiro has the precious formular for all of 10 seconds before it gets stolen. That's the very definition of "the wrong hands."
• Is future Peter shorter than present Peter?
• Wow, Mohinder just solved the whole mystery of why some people have powers in 10 minutes? The mystery his dad was working on for years and years? Please.
• Eagle Eye will never look as good as it does right now when it's held up next to Heroes.
• Eew, I so don't need to see Sylar digging around in Claire's brain.
• Hang on, if the cheerleader isn't like the other and can never die, why'd we spend the whole first season trying to save her (to save the world)? I guess that was a huge waste of time.
• Kristen Bell? Are you here? KB?
• Why does Future Peter talk like an 80-year-old Italian man?
• Now poor Grunberg's stuck in the middle of nowhere... (career metaphor?)
• I think I like Future Ando, what with stabbing Hiro and all.
• Is that Weevil?!
• Mohinder has super strength? My butt, he does.
• After one hour: Can't we call it a day? I so do not need to see another hour of this show.
• David Anders!!!!!!!!!!! Looking gorgeous as usual. With that 5 second clip of him, Heroes just bought themselves another hour of my time. Grrr.
• Mrs. Petrelli (to Peter): "You never were as smart as you thought you were."
• Oh, for crying out loud! Old Mohinder was hard to take, but New Mohinder is downright insufferable. Put on a damn shirt.
• Maya is falling for Mohinder's "I'm-not-wearing-a-shirt-and-can-climb-on-the-walls" act? She's even dumber than I thought she was.
• LOL at Grunberg going all bobble-heady in the dessert.
• KB!!!!!!!!! KB!!!!!!!!!! There she is!!
• Somebody needs to remind Hayden and Milo that their characters are supposed to be related. It's kinda getting gross.
• Nathan (sees Nikki): "Speaking of sin."
• OMG--Veronica and Weevil in the same scene!!! And she walked right past him! No, KB, help Weevil! You owe him. Or he owes you. It's hard to remember...
• Wow, watching Weevil/Peter yell at Sylar to leave Veronica/Elle alone seemed strangely fitting. If I shut off my brain just enough, it was almost like I was watching another, far superior show. It was nice.
• If Peter permanently turned into Weevil, I'd like Heroes a lot better.
• What are you supposed to do now, Elle, you ask? Find that "Peter" fellow, move to Neptune, buy him a motorcycle, and start solving crimes!
• Bet you're going to want to keep your shirt on now that your skin's melting off, Mohinder.
• Oh, thank goodness Grunberg didn't really just read the turtle's mind. I was about to turn off the TV.
• Hey, another guy who can paint the future, which is convenient because they killed off the other one of those.
• So Nathan is being haunted by Linderman now? That's just aces.
• I don't think there's been a scene with Claire yet that hasn't left me rolling my eyes.
• So Sylar's Mrs. Petrelli's kid too, huh. Trying to decide if I care. Um, nope, I don't.

Premiere Rating: 3.5/10 (and all of those points were delivered by KB, Weevil, and the 5 seconds of David Anders)

Nobody puts Sark in a coffin.

Sorry, but that's definitely my version of "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." Like Patrick Swayze, I am in no mood for this crap. And you thought I hated Hiro before...

Honestly, if I saw Masi Oka walking down the street, I might punch him... which kind of seems akin to kicking a puppy, but that's how annoyed I am.

Ok, yes, Adam/Kensei/Sark/David Anders was trying to unleash a virus to wipe out 93% of the human population, but, frankly, if all the other people in the Heroes world are as stupid and annoying as the ones with super powers, maybe trying to start fresh isn't such a bad idea.

All right, let me try to move on here, because in addition to my adamant belief that David Anders should never, ever be buried alive, I had a few other hang ups about this episode (not that that should surprise anyone)...

First of all, I acknowledge that the Heroes writers had to rush the conclusion of this chapter due to the writers' strike, but that doesn't really give them carte blanche to plagiarize Alias. Or maybe the explanation is that Hiro is a big Alias fan, because his method for disposing of immortal Adam was exactly the same as Jack's method for disposing of immortal Sloane. Can't say it was a bad idea for Hiro to outsource his thinking to Jack Bristow (how much better would this show be if Jack Bristow were doing the thinking for all these people?). The burying-the-immortal-guy plot twist wouldn't have been so obviously a rip off of the Alias series finale if they hadn't have done it to an actor who was in the Alias season finale. Duh. I now fully expect that after the strike, Elle will spend a season trying to figure out who killed her best friend.

Now, moving past even that, I still have problems with Adam's burial. He's "immortal"--as in when things happen to him that would kill other people, he does not ultimately die because, like Claire, his cells are able to regenerate. But, the regeneration does not happen until whatever it was that "killed" them is removed from their bodies (the metaphorical arrow must be pulled out of the body)... a.k.a. they do technically die for a while. So, Adam is not going to just lie there in the coffin forever and ever--he's going to suffocate. If someone were to then dig him up and re-expose him to air, then I guess he would come alive again. The point is, though, that the "poetic justice" of the immortal guy living forever in a coffin does not exist, Hiro (and Tim Kring). The way I see it, Hiro just avenged the quick death of a fairly annoying old guy with the slow, torturous death of an extremely beautiful guy...which, in my book, makes him now not just annoying, but also kind of monstrous.

Ok, I guess I've said my piece about the burial. The more I think about Tim Kring's comment, "We've given the audience no reason to believe that Adam can figure a way to get out of there," the more I think he's just trying to be coy and that Adam will probably find a way out of the box within the first episode back from the break.

***Sidebar: doesn't it seem like a bad thing that after Heroes' two big finales, Tim Kring has felt the need to give interviews to try to explain what happened? I occasionally like to complain about the Lost guys too, but their "radio silence" after the momentous Lost Season 3 finale was smart.***

Other stuff:

• Maya and Mohinder in the same place is almost too much stupid for one room to handle.
• Nathan landing while carrying Grunberg was hysterical! "Let's never speak of this again!"--by far the funniest thing ever on Heroes. So funny it seemed like it was in the wrong show and a piece of Chuck had somehow slipped in. Heroes would be oh-so-much more tolerable to me if it developed more of a sense of humor about itself.
• Grunberg doesn't know Hiro either? Did they not meet at some point last year in the square when they were all there trying to take down Sylar?
• So, Maya's death was reversed--thank goodness, because we would have all missed her so much.
• The "deaths" of Nikki and Nathan are both somewhat ambiguous. If that was the end of Nikki, I feel badly, even though I can't really stand her, because her death ended up not really having anything to do with the greater plot. Honestly, although Nathan is one of my more-liked characters on this show, I was kind of glad that someone shot him, if just to end that sappy speech!
• I can't really believe that they all thought that telling people the truth about their powers was the best course of action. Aside from the fact that there are still Old Gen-ers around who don't want that secret out, superheroes never divulge their secret identities! Haven't they ever seen The Incredibles? Your greatest asset is your secret identity! Come on!

All right, friends, that is the last snarky blog entry I'll write about Heroes until it returns in "2008." Hopefully. Though if the strike lasts too long, I may run out of material and have to revisit it and come up with new things to complain about.

Snarky 'Heroes' Retrospective

In honor of tonight's nebulous Heroes "finale" (season finale? arc finale?), I compiled a list of--mostly snarky--comments I made but didn't post about the past 5 or so eps of Heroes. I was going to break them up by episode, but since episodes of Heroes tend to all run together anyway, I'm just going to lump them all in one big list.

While the WGA strike shortening the seasons of all tv shows really stinks, I can't say I'm at all bummed to see the virus/assassinating the older generation story line come to an end prematurely.

I am worried that Adam/Kensei/Sark/David is going to meet an untimely (well, I guess it can't be 'untimely' if you're 400+ years old) demise tonight since we now know he's the superbad (to borrow a term from Seth Rogen, etc.). And I really think he's a goner since it was explained in a heavy-handed manner last week that even the "immortal" cannot survive getting their heads chopped off (so, just in case any of you were wondering if Mary Queen of Scots happened to have the same power as Adam and Claire and maybe survived her execution, there's your answer).

In any event, I have decided to be optimistic and have faith that, if he's killed off Heroes, David will be able to find work somewhere else in a project that doesn't make him speak Japanese/talk about viruses/act opposite Masi Oka. I will gratefully watch whatever it is.

Heroes comments:

• Less than 4 minutes into the episode and I'm already totally bored...
• Why does Claire and Hunter's big plan to disgrace the head cheerleader remind me of that movie with Winona Ryder and Christian Slater where they end up killing everyone?
• YEA! David punched Hiro in the back of the head! That's the best thing I've seen on Heroes since he punched Hiro in episode 1.
• Are "Wicked" and "Hairspray" still going to be playing on Broadway next June?
• So we "saved the world" and it just needs saved all over again? This is frustrating, but at least we've got something else to deal with than Japanese school boy crushes and taking down the head cheerleader...
• Opium stops Hiro from using his powers? Crafty, Sark, crafty.
• Oh, thank God! Sark is finally out of feudal Japan! And, even better, he seems to be the evilest of the evil! Score!
• Now what would have been awesome would be if Sark/Adam had turned out to be KB/Elle's dad! That would have been hilarious and weird (since there's no age difference) and they'd be the coolest evil team ever.
• Ohhhh, so in last season's finale, 'Peter was using all his powers to keep from exploding' therefore he couldn't fly by himself. Nice try at explaining the major logical gap 6 months later...
• This Latino twins storyline was still worthless four months ago.
• Yea, KB! Zap him!
• Can we go back to six years ago when David and Kristen got it on? That's what I want to see! Please!
• This Nikki personality disorder thing is actually pretty interesting. It doesn't explain the disappearing tattoo though. Maybe she just imagined it.
• The company shouldn't let their inmates fraternize with each other. It's a recipe for disaster.
• KB to Mohinder: "What's your super power? Punching bag?" Snap.
• Does Dweebs not mind that his daughter goes around acting like a little hussy?
• A show with David Anders and Kristen Bell as the first two actors listed in the credits should be so much better than this.

(photo: heroes-pictures.com)

Heroes Musings...

Random musings about a Heroes episode (does it really matter which one?):

• If the Heroes execs think that in a show down between Milo and Kristen Bell, the audience is going to root for Milo, they are extremely misguided.
• Whoa, Grunberg expecting Nathan to carry him and fly to Philadelphia is asking a heck of a lot.
• It's not good when the politician is more badass than the cop.
• Matt has to be reminded to read minds when he's looking for answers? For crying out loud...
• It's kind of a shame that Heroes can apparently only afford that one roof top set...it's getting a bit overused.
• Yep, Micah doesn't understand Nikki's power either.
• Despite being telekinetically transported into this prison, Matt still seems to think that he's in an actual real world prison...stupid.
• I do enjoy watching two of the Heroes beat the crap out of each other. Any two will do.
• Could David Anders have a smaller part on this show? Come on. Even KB isn't getting all that much.
• Micah's cousin says, "I'm just looking for some answers," and Mohinder shows up one minute later and says "I have some answers." Oh jeez.
• Milo needs to TONE DOWN THE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS.

Week 2: Chuck and Heroes

Chuck:
"Chuck Versus the Helicopter"

Pretty good episode #2 for Chuck. I liked that we got a little more information about what in the heck is going on... Bryce was a "rogue" agent, which is why the NSA had no qualms about taking him out. And after a stressful hour of not knowing who to trust, we are now fairly sure that Sarah is not also a rogue agent. So that's good.

This episode was probably not quite as funny as the pilot, but I enjoyed myself. I liked how they made poor Chuck exist in a state of panic for basically the entire episode. That's gotta be exhausting. The standout moment of the episode was when Chuck, desperate to keep his family from eating the souffle he believes to be poisoned, accidentally successfully pulls the table cloth out from under everything on the table.

Bullets (which is an appropriate term to use when reviewing a spy show):

• Now Chuck has a voice over too? I don't like it. Thankfully it only served to get us into the episode and then quickly disappeared.
• They sure played the heck out of Spoon's "Don't Make Me a Target" and Gnarls Barkley's "Gone Daddy Gone."
• As they watch Chuck and Morgan play matador and bull: NSA lady, "Our national secrets were sent to an idiot." CIA guy, "At least they weren't sent to his friend."
• Holy crap!!! Chuck knows what happened to Oceanic Flight 815! As in, the plane that crashed on Lost! This is blowing my mind: Lost is on a different network! But, hey, could Chuck please just tell us what happened to the plane, because that would save us a lot of time and frustration? (And--reading too much into this--Chuck got his knowledge from the government, so the government must know about Flight 815, which adds yet another creepy layer to the Lost saga.)
• The bomber should hide the incinerators better. If you sit the thing right on the backseat, of course people are going to find it in time to get out of the car.
• I liked when Sarah said, "You sister is awesome," because, of course, Captain Awesome had to concur.
• Chuck: "That was the doctor, huh? He's probably not dead."

Heroes: "Lizards"

Ugh. I think I liked this episode even less than last week's. At least I had lowered my expectations accordingly.

I really don't like much of anybody on this show anymore. I like Kensei, but I'm sure I probably wouldn't if anyone other than David Anders were playing him. I'm especially annoyed with Claire. I kind of want "The Company" to find her and subject her to lots of tests just so she'll learn her lesson. And I'm so over all the Petrellis.

Oh, one character I still like is Mrs. Bennet. She had the line of the night:

"We do have a colander, dear. We don't need to get flashy."

Other:

• What newspaper would publish a photo of a someone who had just fallen to their death lying in a pool of blood on the pavement?
• Ando and Parkman have never met?
• Well, telling Maya that she's full of evil was really helpful, healer. Because these people weren't whiny enough.
• Does "I wouldn't do that!" in Japanese really sound like, "Wooaboodaboodaboo?" Because how could anyone take themselves seriously saying that?
• I find Hiro's antics just so delightfully amusing... [Now infuse that statement with as much sarcasm as you can, and you'll see where I'm coming from.]
• Maya needs waterproof mascara. That stuff is dripping all over her face! ;-)
• So the assassin appears to have all the powers, like Peter and Sylar. I assume it's neither of them though. There, I tried to care about something that's going on in this show. Now I'll go back to mocking it...
• Geez. Thank goodness Sark/Kensei appears to have the same power as Claire, or Heroes would have just lost me as a viewer. But, why does Hiro do such a poor job of using his power? He can stop time, yet he just let the arrows fly right into Sark. Come on.
• Mohinder never met the Haitian?
• Eeeeew, eew, eew! I so did not need to see Claire cut off her toe with scissors. But, um, how powerful are those scissors anyway? They cut through freaking bone!

Premiere Watch '07: Heroes

Hmm, I had a joke all prepared for tonight's episode of Heroes. I was going to say:

"Well, at least it was better than last year's finale...but, well, that's not saying much. Heck, today's episode of Days of Our Lives was better than last year's finale."

But, here we run into a problem: was tonight's episode better than last year's finale? And were either of them better than today's Days of Our Lives? Luckily for Heroes, today's DOOL was pretty darn bad.

Here are my two main complaints about Heroes (tonight, and in general, I suppose):

There is no dramatic structure to an episode of Heroes. It starts plotlines for 10 different people, then furthers them a little bit, then, instead of providing any sort of conclusion, it just starts plotlines for 5 other people and calls it a night. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

And it's sooooooo over-dramatic! Like, could Ando's facial expressions be any more over the top when Hiro's dad fell off the roof? Umm, yep, they could have been Peter's facial expressions when he found himself chained up in the Irish truck. Come the heck on, people! Tone it down a bit; you're not in a silent movie for crying out loud. And those Latino twins...oy vey. The scene of them talking while hiding in the doorway almost made me barf.

My praises for tonight's Heroes:

Well, they begin and end with David Anders. Wow, he's hot. Even when they make him wear that ridiculous Japanese feudal warrior outfit. It takes one hot boy to rock that outfit and not look completely ridiculous. I was extremely glad when Kensei and Hiro realized they both spoke English, because I was having a hard time keeping up with their rapid-fire Japanese while being horribly distracted by David's beauty. And I was also glad to have my favorite beautiful British rogue criminal back (well, kind of anyway). What I was not totally getting was why they decided to have Kensei turn into Jack Sparrow, but whatev. It could be worse, and it lead to by far the best moment of the night (and possibly the entire Heroes series) when:

David punched Hiro in the face!!!! Oh my gosh, I've been waiting so long for someone to punch Hiro in the face just to shut him up for a while. His constant cheerfulness has become so grating... Thank you, Kensei!

Other observations:

• Nathan's politician hair is ridiculous. Oops, I spoke too soon. His politician hair was no where near as bad as his new hairdo and beard! Yikes. He looks like the uni-bomber.
• Yeah, I wouldn't go hear Mohinder give a lecture either...
• Sorry, folks, Grunberg is still not badass. Elaborate NYPD training exercise they've got there, what with the immediate fake blood, etc. Umm, if all the "hostages" and "captors" were acting, wouldn't they both be thinking, "I'm acting"?
• Claire's grades are going to suffer if she can't raise her hand in class. Some teachers give a class participation grade. Not talking is going to make her stand out for being the weird blonde who never talks.
• Ando's hair is pretty awesome today.
• Great, a weird, recurring symbol. Because we so loved that on Alias and Kyle XY.
• Someone is taking out the older generation. That's fine by me. I can actually recommend some characters from the younger generations that I could do without too.
• Think there's any way that Mr. Bennet's career in the paper business can lead to a cross-over episode with Dunder Mifflin and The Office?
• Ha, the guy from "the company" who was on Dweebs (wow, that's a random reference) has the Midas touch! That's a fun power.
• He he. Grunberg's scared of a little girl. Like I said, he's so not badass.
• Oh, great, these Spanish-speaking kids mean more subtitles to read...fantastic.
• Where is the teacher supervision during Claire's gym class? And why didn't she put her hair in a pony tail to play badminton?
• There are 9 first generation people left. Ugh, this plotline is going to take forever.
• Maya's power is making people bleed out their eyes? That one sucks.
• Hunter from The Office a.k.a. "James Van Der Beek" a.k.a. West (seriously?) can fly. That's cool. I bet he could do a back tuck off that platform without hurting himself. My sister wonders if he's related to flying Nathan, and thus related to Claire. Wouldn't it be fantastic is Claire fell in love with another one of her relatives every season?
• Ok, it's official: no one in Hollywood can do an Irish accent without sounding ridiculous. At least no one on Heroes or Days of Our Lives anyway. I have no idea what just went on in that last scene but I was too distracted by trying to figure out why that one guy looked so familiar and by the accents (the one guy said "turd" instead of "third"....just saying).

Premiere Rating: 5.5* / 10

* 5 of those 5.5 points are for David Anders being ridiculously hot, which Heroes has nothing to do with. I'd give it a 10 just for David, but I don't think that's fair, so I'm setting the maximum number of points that any one actor can earn for a show at 5. Interestingly, if Kristen Bell had been in this episode, she could have earned it another 5 points and Heroes would have gotten a 10 despite being kind of a crappy hour of television.

Woot! More David Anders!

According to TVGuide.com's Michael Ausiello, the Heroes execs are promoting David Anders (my favorite Alias-ian of them all) from recurring character to series regular already, before any of his episodes have even aired! Yea David! I'm glad the Heroes people have recognized what I've been saying to everyone who will listen for years: David Anders is a freakin star. Now if only he could figure out how to look less goofy in red carpet pictures (like the one in Ausiello's blog). How such a gorgeous boy can take such dorky pictures is beyond me.

And major kudos to the Heroes execs for figuring out that the only way to get me at all interested in the happenings of feudal Japan was to put Julian Sark smack in the middle of it. That was genius.

YEEEEEEAAAAAAA!!!!!

David Anders a.k.a. Julian Sark a.k.a. my heart is coming back to TV (in a show I already watch anyway, which is 'super' helpful).

According to the Hollywood Reporter:

NBC's sci-fi drama "Heroes" is casting a wide net for next season, tapping Barry Shabaka Henley, Holt McCallany, "Alias" alum David Anders, Japanese pop star and actress Eriko Tamura, Lyndsy Fonseca and Dianna Agron for recurring roles.

Anders will play the most intriguing part, that of the ancient samurai warrior Takezo Kensei, Hiro Nakamura's (Masi Oka) childhood hero. While never seen during "Heroes' " first season, Kensei played a key part in the show's plot. Hiro spent most of the season trying to get ahold of Kensei's sword, which he hoped would help him in his quest to save the world.

OK, I will take David Anders any way I can get him (seriously... any way) but, um, he's playing an ancient samurai warrior? I'm at a loss. Would not one expect an ancient samurai warrior to be Japanese? I guess not. I hope this doesn't mean that he'll have to speak Japanese the whole time. I don't want to have to read subtitles when my Juls is on the screen because I'll totally get distracted by his devilish good looks and miss all kinds of pivotal dialogue.

I hope that David's character's being ancient and Japanese and all won't keep him from having some scenes with Greg Grunberg. I want an Alias reunion!

Ann's Favorite Series Finales Ever

In honor of the Gilmore Girls series finale tonight (sniff, sniff), I've compiled a list of my favorite series finales ever:

• The OC: I still get sad thinking about this show being gone. Thankfully, one of my favorite shows of all time ended with one of my favorites finales of all time. The finale 15 or so minutes of this ep especially were fantastic. Ryan standing in the Cohen house remembering the early days was so touching. And I'm such a sucker for the shot of Marissa standing in the sun while Ryan drives by. I was bawling. Also awesome were the flash forward clips: Seth and Summer getting married, Julie graduating college, MiniCoop excelling in school, Sandy teaching at Berkley Law, Ryan working as an architect and helping kids. It was so nice to see that our favorite characters (minus Marissa, of course) all getting happy endings.
• Alias: This was another show that was hard to say goodbye to. Sydney, Sark, Vaughn, Jack, Sloane, Marshall, Will, Francie, Irina and Dixon all meant so much to me. The episode was complicated, of course, what with Irina falling through a skylight, Sloane becoming immortal, Jack trapping immortal Sloane in a tomb/cave, etc. Loved Sydney and Vaughn living happily-ever-after on the beach with their kids...while Sydney still goes on the occasional mission to take down Sark. Sydney and Sark forever!
• Arrested Development: George Michael and Maebe aren't related after all!
• Full House: Michelle gets amnesia...but then remembers everyone. Phew. In even better news, Steve takes D.J. to the prom and Steph is the Juliet to a cute boy's Romeo.
• Angel: I didn't even really watch this show, but I loved this episode. Fade out on Angel and friends taking on thousands of evil demon things. ("Personally, I'd like to slay the dragon."--so cool)

And, just for the heck of it, bad series finales:

• Lois & Clark: A mysterious baby shows up in their freaking house when they find out that Clark can't have kids (Earth kids, at least). Lois was so sappy. Ugh.
• Due South: The flash-forward scenes were so discouraging!
• Three's Company: Jack and Janet did not end up together. Enough said.

Now only a few hours until we find out where the Gilmore finale will rank on this list :-(

Addison's Anatomy

On Thursday ABC showed the long awaited "pilot" for the Grey's spinoff centering on Addison. It was an interesting way to introduce us to the show: mashing up scenes of Addison in L.A. in with scenes from Grey's 1.0.

Grey's (the flagship):

Remember when the show first started out and Meredith and Christina were so dramatic and messed up and wishy-washy and Burke and Derek used to just look at each other and go, "Sheesh, these women..." Well, now, it's totally Burke and Derek who are freaking out for no reason and being all annoying. The craziness is not as endearing coming from the 40ish men. Get over it, boys.

My other problem was that after Meredith's stepmom died (and what even happened to her, by the way?), the Chief and Bailey have Meredith go tell her dad. Meredith? How is that her duty? The Chief should have told him--if he got slapped in the process he at least had it coming for having an affair with Thatcher's first wife. Poor Meredith--things are just not going her way these last couple weeks. First she almost dies, then her mom does die, then her stepmom dies, then her dad slaps her, and then Derek chats up the girl from Reunion in a bar.

The scene of Christina trying on the wedding dress was awesome. There should have totally been more of that.

Private Practice:
Ugh. Seriously... Grossest. Show name. Ever. Apparently, Shonda's goal for Grey's 2.0 was Grey's but slower, older, and soapier. Well, it was definitely slower. And its cast (except for Piz) are all about Addison's age, so it's older. (I actually think this was one of it's problems. One of the cool things about Grey's is the three different age groups and how they interact.) And I guess it was soapier too, which is saying a lot now that Grey's has almost-deaths, amnesia, and Gizzie.

I thought Addison's Anatomy was going to be good. I like Addison. I like Piz. I like L.A. I like Taye Diggs. I love Tim Daly. And I love Merrin Dungey. So I was excited. Then I see during the credit list that David Anders was in the episode. David freaking Anders! Then I was crazy I-can-barely-sit-still excited. So it's understandable that they didn't live up to my expectations. It would have been hard to meet them, actually. The show does have potential--I think it just needs some tweeks.

1. If you have David Anders in your episode, use him for frak's sake. Give him more than one line ("do you know who the father is?") and something more interesting to do that just stand around. And, come on, like Sark knocked up the weird girl from Joan of Arcadia. Sark is sooooooo out of her league. Sark is out of everyone's league.
2. Make Francie/Merrin/Naomi more funny. She can be hilarious (Kitty on Malcolm).
3. Let Taye be funny too. He was a little funny, but there's room to improve.
4. Give Tim Daly's character a distinct personality. Don't just make him a Dreamy/Steamy hybrid with a dead wife.
5. Either change Shrinking Voilet or lose her. She was painful to watch.
6. That other guy? Lose him.
   
7. Piz needs to be more than the hot receptionist. Especially since he's the nerdy nice guy on Veronica Mars. Make him goofy or something.
8. More interesting patients. It must be hard for Shonda, etc. to come up with interesting patient stories after making 3 seasons of them on Grey's. Maybe they should have a few patients who are recurring characters.
9. And question: if Francie/Naomi is the best fertility specialist ever, can she not do something for Addison other than just say, "You can't have a baby."

Oh and this isn't about TV, but Spider-Man 3: love!

Harry painting a picture + Harry making an omlet = Fantastic movie!!!

(I love Harry.)