Gossip Girl: Affairs to Remember

Gossip Girl:

"Last Tango, Then Paris"

I told myself that if Gossip Girl could string together a couple tolerable episodes, I'd go back to blogging about it. And the last two episodes ("Ex-Husbands and Wives" and "It's a Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad World") have been all right. The show is much better when all the characters are together in one or two main story lines, instead of each of them being off in his or her own dumb plot.

So here's the blog for the Season 3 finale. Play-by-play first, then additional reflections:

• Oh, yes, Rufus, when your teenage daughter has run amok, the best way to handle her is to send her to the loft to live with her 19-year-old brother. That's fantastic parenting.
• And what makes it even better is that Rufus apparently never even bothered to call Dan to make sure that Jenny actually made it to the loft.
• Eric: "Go ahead and send her crazy ass away."
• Jenny, you should not sleep in that much eye makeup. That has to be bad for you.
• Chuck brings Nate breakfast in bed? (Is that breakfast? I can't tell what's on the tray.)
• Wow, Vanessa's been gone for like a day and Dan's already having "meaningless kisses" with "old friends"? To me, that says a lot about how much he really "loves" Vanessa. Not sure how he really could love Vanessa that much though. Especially after all that Tisch crap she was trying to pull over on him. At least Dan knows Serena will never edge him out for an educational opportunity he's interested in.
• Gossip Girl: "Spotted: A family reunion only Faulkner would approve of."
• Blair: "We all try on own clothes and are pleasantly surprised when they still fit, but that doesn't me we should wear them ever again!" (That's actually really quite helpful advice to me personally, because I recently made an attempt at cleaning out my closet.)
• Rufus: "Was that my Lincoln Hawk t-shirt Serena was wearing?"
• Who was the lady with all the flowers who was in the elevator behind Nate?
• It's May for goodness sake! Take off your winter coats!
• Blair thinks Nate and Serena are "mythic"? Did I hear that correctly? Mythic?! I think Blair needs to look up the definition of mythic.
• Blair: "Dan loves Vanessa, God knows why..."
• Dan and Blair interacting is usually entertaining.
• Oh, the elevator lady was bring Chuck's flowers for Blair.
• If you leave, Jenny, you'll get to be with your mom, so you'll have the shot of having a quasi-responsible parent. Which would be one more than you've got now.
• Wow, that's Serena's outfit for visiting the hospital when her best friend's maid is giving birth!?! A mini skirt and a shirt with a very plunging neckline and 4-inch heals? Is Darota giving birth in the middle of a Beyonce music video? Because that's the only excuse for wearing an outfit like that for the occasion.
• Blair: "Goodbye, Georgina. May God save your soul. Again."
• Wow, Darota's got a lot of people in that delivery room with her.
• Blair: "Hi, I'm meeting a young man here. Probably in a bow tie, possibly carrying peonies?"
• Well, what time is it? Was Blair late or what? Couldn't she have sent Chuck a text to say, "Wait an extra five minutes"?
• Noooooooo, nooooooooooo, noooooooooooo, noooooooooooo Chuck and Jenny. Noooooooooo Chuck and Jenny. Nooooooooooo Chuck and Jenny. Noooooooooooooooooooooo!
• Ok, Jenny, I'm sure you can find a way to "not be alone" without having to sleep with Chuck Bass.
• Well, Eleanor and Cyrus are definitely better choices for godparents than Chuck and Blair.
• Oh, yeah, Dan and Vanessa are REAL happy. The two of them together is just a pile of laughs.
• Why are Dan and Serena still hanging around the hospital? The baby's born. I'm sure they're free to leave.
• How long did it take Blair to get from the Empire State Building to Chuck's hotel? Did she get mugged on the way there or something?
• Why don't you take Blair out of the apartment with the crazy girl in it, Chuck? Do not mess around with Jenny.
• Wow, Jenny looks terrible! That eye makeup is sooooo not designed for crying.
• Oh, yeah, Serena, you being "alone for awhile" is really going to work. That will last for like a second.
• What a mournful cover version of Band of Horses' "The Funeral"! I am such a sucker for haunting versions of indie rock songs.
• Don't just leave her there, Eric! Oh, ok, he went to get Dan. I guess that's ok.
• Nate: "Yes, Serena, it is you." (Snap! Go Nate!)
• Chuck: "You know what would make this night even better?" (How I finished his sentence for him in my head:) "If I hadn't just slept with Jenny Humphrey."
• Whoa! Dan! Fists of fury!
• While it's nice to see Dan finally sticking up for Jenny, isn't it kind of a day late, a dollar short? Most of the year, Dan's been, what, completely indifferent to Jenny, at best? And now he's charging in to defend her honor?
• Sorry, Dan, I'm not sure I believe that this really "begins and ends with Chuck." Not after the tremendous amount of crap Jenny's been pulling all year long. She was in a bad situation of her own causing and it led her to make yet another terrible decision. If anything, this begins and ends with Jenny Humphrey.
• One week later... Blair let Jenny stay in New York for a whole week? (Was she allowed to be in Brooklyn, or was that off limits too?)
• So, even after hitting rock bottom, Jenny refuses to abandon the horrific eye makeup? That look is not working out, Little J. It's time to move on from that too.
• At least Jenny's train wreck of a story line only got her sent away and she didn't have to be mowed down in the street like Marissa Cooper.
• Of course the reason Serena wants to go to Paris is for the lingerie!
• Ha! Ohhhhhhh, Dan. And we thought Jenny was the messed up Humphrey.
• I hope Dan is smart enough to DNA test that baby. Am I confident that he's smart enough? Not really. Maybe he can talk to Blair on the phone and she can plant that idea in his head.
• CHUCK!!! NOOOO! Just when I was commending GG on not killing off Jenny, Chuck gets shot!
• How come when people get shot on TV shows, they don't react at first and then just slowly look down? Why does no one yell "OW!"?

Further reflections on Georgie's big secret: On second thought, Georgie's not even really pregnant is she? Earlier when she was talking to Chuck it sounded like she was in trouble with the Russians, and how would her having Dan's baby get her in trouble with the Russians? (The Russians have heard how annoying the Humphreys are and don't want there to be anymore of them?) She couldn't get whatever she wanted from Chuck or Blair earlier, so she concocted a new scheme while listening to Dan and Serena talk about babies. It seems too perfect to me that she's pregnant with Dan's baby right after hearing him say that he likes babies.

So, overall, this episode was an explosive end to a lackluster third season (which is so very like The O.C.). Did the no-holds-barred drama of the finale make up for the muck of the rest of the year? No. Does it set the show up for an interesting fourth season? Perhaps. I'm not convinced that it does, but maybe the show will come back with new ideas and a renewed sense of purpose.

From this interview with Michael Ausiello, executive producer Stephanie Savage makes it pretty clear that despite last being seen lying in a pool of his own blood in the street in Prague, Chuck is not dead. (Unless Blair's about to embark on a long relationship with a dead man a la Izzie on Grey's Anatomy.) Personally, I really don't understand why she gave that interview, which was published literally minutes after the finale ended. Why not let viewers sweat out Chuck's fate, which was one of the two main cliffhanger from the finale, for a little while at least? (Obviously no one really expects them to kill off Chuck Bass, but why bother to shoot him if they're going to assure us within minutes that he's going to be fine?) I said this after the Heroes people posted an interview explaining the Season 1 finale soon after it aired and I stand by it: Don't give an immediate interview after a finale. Let it fester for a minute or two. If your season finale can't stand on its own, write a better season finale.

(photo: cwtv.com)

**By the way, I'd just like to point out that the outfit Serena is wearing in this picture is what she wears to hang out at a friend's house.

10 Things I Hate About You: Not Much To Like

10 Things I Hate About You:

"Pilot"

Full disclosure: I'm a pretty big fan of the film version of 10 Things I Hate About You. In fact, aside from Clueless, it's probably at the top of my list of favorite teen movies. It holds a special place in my heart because it came out in 1999, when I was, in fact, a teenager (and not a 20-something who still watches an inordinate amount of teen shows). Therefore, ABC Family's television remake of 10 Things could probably only really go one of two ways with me: I'd love it for reprising characters and story lines I adored or I'd detest it immensely for dragging something I love through the mud. After watching the pilot episode, it looks like you're heading for a sizable payday if you put your money on the "detest" option.

I'm tempted to turn my review into a list under the heading "10 Things I Hate About This Show," but I think I can boil the objects of my distaste down to a few key attributes. (I do, however, reserve the right to pull out a 10-part list if I deem it necessary after watching future episodes.)

First of all, the characters in the show failed dismally in living up to the appeal of the originals. If you think about it, for a teen movie, a lot of the actors in 10 Things turned out to be pretty legit: Heath Ledger (obviously), Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and David Krumholtz all have created fairly solid bodies of work. Additionally, Gabrielle Union and Andrew Keegan were proven mainstays of the teen movie/show genre. Larisa Oleynik (Bianca) has flown fairly under the radar (at least my radar) since 10 Things, but she was pitch-perfect in the film. So, it's not like the young actors in the 10 Things television show don't have some reasonably big shoes to fill.

The problem is that they're not even coming close. I'm not going to even discuss the merits of Ethan Peck vs. Heath Ledger as Patrick, because there's probably no one who could fill those shoes. (But is Ethan even giving it that great of a try? No, not really.) Kat is rather unlikeable (and not like Julia Stiles' Kat was unlikeable because she was supposed to be gruff--this one's just annoying and seems inconsistent). The kid who plays Cameron seems to be trying to channel Michael Cera so hard that it's probably actually hurting. Bianca's okay, but not quite there yet. And this Joey is NO Andrew Keegan (lol). Even the dad in the TV show fails to live up to the charm of the dad in the movie, and he's played by the same actor!

These across-the-board shortcomings lead me to the conclusion that most of the problems with the characters in the show lie with the writing as opposed to the acting. So far, everyone seems like a caricature or a stereotype and not so much like an actual person-esque entity. No one has real soul yet. No one has real dimension.

The one character/actor I did like was Dana Davis (of The Nine, Heroes, and a far superior turn on Pushing Daisies) as Chastity. Sure, she is playing a stereotype too, but she did a good job with it.

Additionally, I'm not sure why this show is a half-hour comedy instead of a one-hour, soap-style drama like Greek. Perhaps the characters would have gelled better if they'd had a little more time. It felt like we were tearing through the episode a break-neck speed and sacrificing subtle nuances like plot and character development. (After all, we did see the first day of school, cheerleading tryouts, the first party, and another school day, which seems like a lot when an entire episode could reasonably be based solely on one school day or one party.)

Highlights + a few other things I hated:

• The background music at the beginning of the episode was a little too decidedly perky and cutesy.
• Michael: "Even the biggest dorks can be cool if they play their cards right. Look at Shia LaBeouf." (Is Shia really the best example of that phenomenon? I'm not sure I ever thought that Shia was that dorky. Goofy, maybe.)
• Cameron is really tall. He doesn't seem as sweet at the movie version either. Just pathetic.
• Kat alternates between being extremely rude and extremely idealistic and humanitarian. It's bizarre.
• One other thing I like better about the movie: it's pivotal scenes don't involve a staring contest.
• Chastity: "Of the 10 things I hated about today..." (Is that how we're tying the title into the show? It's kind of clumsy. I realize that they can't have Kat reading the "I hate the way you..." poem in the first episode since that would wrap up the entire story, but I'd have been fine if the title had never being directly referenced.)
• This keg full of non-alcoholic beer thing is straight out of Freaks and Geeks.
• Why doesn't Kat just leave this poor (Patrick) guy alone? I really don't think he's even trying to mess with her. I think they just happen to be in the same room sometimes.
• At least we know that Patrick can talk--I wasn't sure for a while there.
• This Joey character is completely different. He's not sleazy--he's just "confused."
• Dad: "Are you talking to me or the democrats in your head?"
• Bianca: "Since I'm not going to be popular, I may as well join show choir. Closeted gay guys are fun."
• Ok, now Patrick might be messing with Kat.
• Bianca: "No more NPR. It's giving me menopause."
• Um, shouldn't somebody be paying somebody else to take out the surly sister? Wasn't that the whole point?

(I suspect that the show not really living up to the movie accounts for ABC Family not playing the movie over and over again in preparation for tonight's premiere. It's probably better for them if the superior source material isn't fresh in our minds.)

(photo: abcfamily.com)

Glee: A Joyful Noise

Glee:

"Pilot"

Glee, a new show that is on FOX's fall schedule, debuted its pilot episode this spring to give everyone a sneak peak. After seeing many raves from critics, I decided to give the show a look. I thought the pilot was pretty good, though I'm not sure that I was as infatuated as many of the critics seemed to be. The show does display a good deal of promise, and I'll definitely watch future episodes.

Ok, I'll admit it, the real reason I watched Glee was to see Charlie from Kyle XY acting like a half-decent person. Boy, is he cute when he's not cheating on Amanda with girls who put out...

The aspect of Glee that I liked best was its witty banter (examples of which are coming up in the highlight list). The aspect I liked least about Glee was its harping on the importance of living your life passionately and following your dreams--a moral that was not-so-subtly reinforced with the big "Don't Stop Believing" production number. (As far as I'm concerned, bring on more irreverent selections like "Rehab" and fewer earnest ones like "Don't Stop Believing" and "You're the One that I Want.") The didactic nature of it all was getting kinda old.

My suggestion for future episodes would be that they make sure that the other members of the glee club are featured more in the musical numbers. The more Finn/Rachel duets we watch, the more Glee starts looking like High School Musical. And that's not quite the goal the show should be aiming for.

Highlights and my observations:

• Aww, they threw the kid with the jacket from the newest Marc Jacobs collection in the trash. That's not cool.
• Hey, look, it's Elle's dad from Heroes. He's so much better in this. (Big shocker there.)
• Will's wife won't let him have $60 a month? Who is she, Kate Gosselin? (Sorry, couldn't help that one.)
• I love this "Mr. Cellophane" kid (Kurt).
• They do have kids with some serious pipes at this school. It shouldn't be too hard to revive glee club.
• Lol, about Rachel "not knowing" which of her two gay dads is her biological father.
• Oh, ok, they just have these five kids. The choreography's not quite there, but at least they sound good. Why does glee club even need choreo anyway?
• Rachel: "Mr. Schuester, do you have any idea how ridiculous it is to give the lead solo in 'Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat' to a boy in a wheelchair?"
• Principal Figgins: "What is it with you and this club? You've got only five kids, and one of them's a cripple!"
• Ohh, who is this lady playing Schuester's wife? She looks familiar. Ok, I looked it up and she was on Heroes (playing Claire' biological mother), so that would explain the animosity that I instantly felt towards her.
• Mrs. Schuester: "But, Will, I'm on my feet four hours a day, three times a week here!"
• Sandy: "It wasn't easy though, being dismissed--and for what I was accused of! My long distance girlfriend in Cleveland nearly broke up with me. ...Oh, God, don't you love a good monkey?"
• Lol, drug-dealing Sandy is taking a page out of Walter White's playbook.
• Sue (cheerleading coach): "High school is a caste system. Kids fall into certain slots. Your jocks, your popular kids: penthouse. The invisibles and the kids who play live action druids and trolls out in the forest: bottom floor."
  Will: "And where to the glee kids fall?"
  Sue: "Sub-basement."
• Ken (football coach): "I can't see any of my guys joining glee club. Last month, they held down one of their teammates and shaved off his eyebrows, just because he watches Grey's Anatomy."
• The football players signed up someone named "Butt Lunch" on the glee club sign-up sheet.
• Will: "You'll get kicked out of school. You'll lose your football scholarship."

  Finn: "Wait, I have a football scholarship? To where?"
• Aww, poor Finn. Framed and backmailed into joining the glee club.
• Why did Will marry this woman? I am at a complete loss.
• Ah, so he was the high school "golden boy" and she was head cheerleader. Even so, that is no explanation/excuse for marrying this psycho woman.
• Finn lying to his teammate, saying that his mom had prostate surgery.
• I love the other school's glee club singing "Rehab." They're not doing a great job of lip-syncing though.
• Whoa, Finn's one teammate (the one who looked up that chicks don't have prostates) looks like he's at least 30. Or 40...
• Um, is crazy wife really pregnant or is this just her way to get him to quit the teaching job?
• Kurt: "You nailed all my lawn furniture to my roof."
• Rachel didn't out do herself with this choreography. It frankly looks like there's no choreo going on at all.
• I think they're going to need to better utilize the four other members of this group if they're going to win Nationals.
• The previews for the episodes coming up in the fall made them look better than this pilot.

(photo: FOX.com)

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)

Pushing Daisies: Rent a Friend, Save a Show

Pushing Daisies: "Frescorts"

Although I'm very much not on board with the whole Lily-is-really-Chuck's-mother-and-Charles-is-
her-father-and-he-used-to-be-Vivian's-fiance-
so-they-are-just-pretending-to-be-her-aunts thing, I am still very, very much on board with Pushing Daisies in general.

The way I see it, PD's PD's second season has been composed of two very good episodes (Bzzzzz!" and "Bad Habits") and two fantastic episodes ("Circus, Circus" and "Frescorts"). Despite the show's continued exceptional quality, its ratings have been sup-par at best. So it looks like it's time to dust off the old save-our-show fan campaign skill set: send letters and e-mails to ABC, sign the online petition, tell people you know to watch, etc. If you care about this show (and you should, trust me), you can stay abreast of the fan campaign at pushingdaisies-tv.com and at savepushingdaisies.blogspot.com. Hopefully some sort of daisy-mailing will happen soon too.

As for "Frescorts," I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. I thought that Ned opening the door to reveal the (happy-looking) taxidermied Golden Retriever holding a guitar was hands down one of the funniest moments of this new TV season.

Also, it was nice to see Ned making more of an effort to get along on his own a bit--he's been acting awfully needy towards Chuck this season. And now he might even have a new (albeit creepy) friend, who at least didn't kill anyone (that we know of) and whom he doesn't have to pay to like him.

I also liked seeing Olive and Chuck try to be friends, only to discover that their baggage proved impossible to ignore when they were forced to confront it when they were both stuffed in the same locker. It was convenient that they're both so skinny that the two of them could fit in the same locker. But they both decided that they're relationship is worth working on, which was nice.

And Emerson got to have some fun with his entertaining PI mother. (Boy, was Emerson one cute baby!)

Also, this episode featured a star turn by Dana Davis, who--like Chi McBride--was eons more likable in Pushing Daisies than she was in The Nine (and also much better than she was in Heroes, but that's an entirely different story).

Exchange of the Episode:
Ned: "It's tough. You share your life with someone and suddenly there's an abyss where a person always was before."
Randy: "You lost a roommate too?"
Ned: "And girlfriend. Same person."
Randy: "Your roommate slash girlfriend died?!"
Ned: "Yeah. I mean no. She moved out. Sorry, doesn't compare. Not even remotely."
Randy: "You're not completely alone though. Golden Retriever, right?"
Ned: "Yeah! Digby...would be a source of comfort if he didn't prefer living with my girlfriend, her new bestie, and their pig!"

Runner-up:
Olive: "Here comes the center of the universe, pulling us all into her gravitational orbit of blame."
Chuck: "Oh, well, FYI, um, there is no center of the universe because our universe is forever expanding."
Olive: "Like your neediness."

Sorry, I can't end the post without reasserting my annoyance with the Lily-is-Chuck's-mom story line. I don't mind it on principle, but when you think about it, it doesn't make sense. Supposedly, Vivian was the fiancee of Charles Charles (we'll call him CC) until he told her he'd knocked up someone else (Lily, but Viv doesn't know that). So Viv and CC break up, and CC raises Chuck by himself after Lily gives birth to her in the convent. So then, why when CC died would Viv (the jilted fiancee) and Lily (the jilted fiancee's sister who "has nothing to do with any of this") rush to Chuck and adopt her, becoming her surrogate "aunts"? It doesn't make any sense. Why would you go raise the child that your cheating fiance fathered with someone else while engaged to you? Why would your sister go along with it?

Anyway, the rest of the show is still awesome. Help to save Pushing Daisies!!!

(photo: abc.com)

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)

TV News Roundup

What I'm paying attention to:

• Based on a behind-the-scenes Gossip Girl feature I saw on Access Hollywood a few days ago, it seems like Blair Waldorf has spent her summer vacation figuring out how to turn Chuck Bass' name into swear words. So far she's got: "Chuck Basstard" and "mother-Chucker."
• Uh oh. Art imitates life as Scott Michael Foster (Cappie) drinks too much, gets in trouble. Evan Chambers is going to have a field day with this...
• Wildfire's Kris Furillo is hooking up with one of Rory Gilmore's ex-boyfriends on Supernatural! Genevieve is seriously brave to sign on for this job, as Supernatural fans have been notoriously harsh critics of some of the show's past female characters. I'm kind of missing Kris and the Wildfire gang, though, so I might tune in for this even though I don't watch Supernatural. Wildfire, Junior, Matt, and the wind turbine are all going to be so jealous though.
• Speaking of the Wildfire gang, Nana Visitor (still can't believe that's her real name) a.k.a. Jean Ritter is in the soon-to-be-released film Swing Vote (you have to scroll down the list to find her). I know about this because she delivers what seems to be a fairly important line in the trailer.
• Even after spending a year working on Private Practice, Chris Powell is still hilarious. Is it just me, or does he seem pretty serious when he's comparing the rest of PP's cast to a group of elderly people who need someone young to reassure them that they're still attractive?
• Grunberg comes dangerously close to admitting that he thought the second season of Heroes sucked too.
• My favorite season 2 Chuck Bass outfit so far.

Gossip Girl: Restoring the Natural Order

Gossip Girl: "All About My Brother"
All hail Queen B! It's good thing that Blair didn't go to all the trouble of moving to France, because even without Serena's promised help, it only took B three episodes to fully resume her status at the top of the social pyramid. And thank goodness Jenny has finally socially crashed and burned for what we can only hope is that last time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this episode--at least as much as I can enjoy an episode with no Chuck and plenty of Jenny. Even though he recently developed a fairly pleasing personality, Nate was not particularly missed tonight. Chuck, however, must return. Immediately.

I really liked tonight's renewed focus on the Gossip Girl blog, which, after all, is the premise of the show. It seems to have been slipping into the background for a while now, but I'm glad it was at the forefront tonight. The more I get to hear Kristen Bell, the better (is it wrong that when she says "You know you love me, XOXO" in the opening, it almost brings a tear to my eye?).

Eric's outing was the second coming out I've seen on TV in two days. At least Eric is dealing with it 50-55 years before Uncle Saul got around to it on Brothers and Sisters. But, seriously, Eric met Asher at the Ostroff Center and liked him? Him? Because if the dude was half the asshat in rehab that he is in the outside world, Eric made a major character misjudgement.

And Serena. Oh, Serena, things are not getting better. Early in the episode, when Georgie showed up with the video, it felt very anticlimactic, because all I was getting from the video was that Serena was involved in some sort of orgy. Yes, participating in drunken orgies is not exactly a sign of great moral character, but it did not seem nearly bad enough to cause all this trouble--after all, whatever she did was supposed to scandalize even Chuck...and we all know that an orgy wouldn't phase old Chuck for a second.

But, then, in the final moments, we find out what I've been speculating for weeks: Serena killed someone, or so she says. I think the most remarkable part of the revelation scene was that Serena's tears and eyeliner were combining to make her look eerily like Mia from Heroes. And I want no reminders of Mia from Heroes.

I see why Serena maybe doesn't want to tell Dan that she killed someone during some sort of orgy, but not telling him anything isn't working any better. It seems like she could come up with some kind of half-truth ("I knew Georgina when I was really wild and she's a horrible influence and knows things that I did that I'm not proud of.") that would at least buy her some more time.

Highlights!

• Nelly Yuki is now part of Blair's gang! Yea! This is awesome news! (Look, she's in the picture on the far left!) That girl rocks some seriously wicked glasses. I'm surprised she has time for these events, parties, and scheming sessions, what with being a concert pianist, scholar and all, but I'm not complaining.


• Wow, "Sarah" really latched on to Dan/Vanessa. They should find that suspicious. They (especially Vanessa) are not that interesting.


• I called that Eric and Asher had a relationship even before Dan saw Asher kissing a boy on the street.


• Lilly: "When you revise the seating chart, don't forget to put Mr. Spitzer as far away from Serena's table as possible."


• Jenny's not a very good bitch. Her delivery on "Even you should know that jealously clashes with L.L. Bean pants" was off. Or maybe it's just a really weird thing to say. I don't know, something about that was weird.


• Dan: "And she dissed my pants."


• Hazel (?) (when Gossip Girl reported that Jenny's bf is gay): "Now you know how Vanessa Hudgens feels."


• Like the girls in Blair's posse, I'm glad Gossip Girl "got her balls back" too.


• Blair said "endgame"! For an Alias fan, that's pretty exciting.


• Why would Nelly Yuki be displaying such loyalty to Blair one week after she messed up her ability to do well on the SATs? I guess Nelly has yet to figure out the extent of Blair's scheming.


• Georgina! Outing Eric at dinner was way harsh! Wow, I knew he was gay and I knew he was going to be outed, but I didn't think she was going to do it. Poor Eric always gets dragged into Serena's battles


• Rufus should knock Jenny over the head with something. He's about the worst parent ever. She weighs like 90 pounds--how hard is it to keep her from going out a door?


• Aw, Eric confides in Chuck! That's so sweet.


• Blair's party dress was fantastic.


• Blair (dispensing life lessons): "The most important parties to attend are the ones you're not invited to."


• It's nice to see Blair's agenda finally lining up on the side of truth and justice for once. She's acting like a superhero tonight by avenging Eric and taking down Asher and Little J.


• Izzy: "And to think, I almost asked you to wear a matching dress!"


• Gossip Girl: "Don't worry, Little J, the sun will come out tomorrow, even though your boyfriend did today."


• If it's an consolation after her fall from grace, Jenny's dress was pretty. I wonder what she had to steal/pawn to get that one.


• And this line wasn't funny, but I thought it was sweet and rather beautiful. Blair: "We're sisters, we're family, what's you is me. There's nothing you could say that would ever make me let go."

And next week, it seems that Serena decides that the best way to keep her horrible secret drink heavily and sleep around. That's brilliant, S.

(photo: cwtv.com)

Ryan Hansen: Hot Step-Dad in 90210

Some interesting buzz in the TV world is that Rob Thomas, the creator of my beloved and revered Veronica Mars, has three different pilots picked up for next season: a reprise of Cupid, a spin-off of 90210, and a remake of foreign series Outrageous Fortune.

My take on this is that it's a good thing. It takes us several steps closer to my dream of someday having either Josh Schwartz or Rob Thomas create every show on television. My one reservation is that Rob is not going to have a whole lot of time to write us a Veronica Mars movie while he's writing three hour-long TV series. And, personally, I still want that movie.

Some of the best news of all is that Kristen Bell is in talks to star in the Outrageous Fortune show. That's great because KB is fantastic, and I know that Rob can utilize her talents in a much better way that Heroes has done/will do.

The good news about KB's possible casting made me think that Rob should focus on getting some of the other VM actors on his three shows. Surely there must be something for Wallace to do--my heart aches when I see him in Hot Pockets commercial. And I'd love to see Weevil resurface too.

But, my most awesome idea is that Ryan Hansen needs to have a role on 90210 as the really young, hot husband of somebody's mom. How great would that be? He could be the Ashton in an Ashton/Demi-type relationship. And, of course, all the high schoolers would be in love with him, and all kinds of inappropriate things would happen. It would be amazing.

Please, Rob, you know I'm right about this.

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.

Gossip Girl Takes on Heroes

On Monday I watched Heroes and was struck (yet again) by how many freaking characters are actually on that show. So I was thinking that we almost need someone to help us keep them all straight, and then I had a brainstorm that Heroes needs to adopt a Gossip Girl-esque narrator (and since Kristen Bell's already on their payroll, what's stopping them?). Gossip Girl would help viewers keep track of the 7 million characters and, as an added bonus, through in snarky comments. And let's face it, if anyone deserves some snarky comments thrown at them, it's the people on Heroes. Here's my attempt at Gossip Girl summarizing this week's Heroes episode:

Hey, everybody! Gossip Girl here, bringing you all the dirt on your favorite (or least favorite, as the case may be) heroes. Sorry, folks--it doesn't matter how evolutionarily advanced you are or what magical powers you have, I still know everything you're up to...

Spotted: C-Bear and her new creepy boy-toy on a romantic rendezvous in the clouds. That's right, gossipers--C-Bear's new stalker/boyfriend has the same power as her bio-daddy N! They say girls always marry their fathers... Stay tuned though, because it turns out C-Bear's other beloved daddy kidnapped said sketchy boy back in the days he worked for the evil empire. This should make for some rousing family dinners!

Spotted: PP getting his Black Donnelly on with a crime family in Ireland. That's right--the scope of Gossip Girl's reach knows no geographical limits. It seems PP is content being an accomplice to robbery, kissing Irish girls and *not* wearing a shirt as often as possible. Are his days of mopey, crime-fighting idealism over? Could we be so lucky?

Spotted: M and Mama N leaving Las Vegas. If you didn't see them, don't feel bad--they were having the exact same conversation they've been having during at least 5 other sightings.

Spotted: The Terrible Twins in a Mexican prison. Girl Twin did her mascara-of-death act on the guards to spring her brother from the slammer. Somebody needs to hook her up with some waterproof Maybelline stat! Luckily, Boy Twin managed to quell her evil and oh-so-nebulous power, bringing everyone back to life. Twinsies made a break for it, taking with them the ass clown from one cell over, because apparently I don't have enough people to keep track of. Don't worry, fellow hero-worshipers, Gossip Girl is not easily deterred.

Spotted: H still in feudal Japan. You got it--Gossip Girl transcends both space and time. Seems H has succeeded in transforming his oh-so-wickedly-hot folk hero into a warrior, but still can't bring himself to leave without a certain princess. Sorry, H, since she's not blind, your chances aren't very good against that super-hottie. Time to come home to reunite with bff A, who is dangerously close to losing his job. A, I know you're reading this...it's time to stop reading gossip blogs and start doing your job!

As for the rest of you, stay tuned. Gossip Girl is amazing, but it's hard for even her to keep track of all of these chromosomal mutants. It is easier now that none of them are actually doing anything interesting.

Until next time... You know you love me.
XOXO -- Gossip Girl

(photos: nbc.com)

Premiere Watch '07: 30 Rock

A few weeks after its fantastic 1st season won the Emmy for Best Comedy, 30 Rock picked up right where it left off last year. The second season opener featured a guest appearance by Jerry Seinfeld, and if his appearance on the show can help to hook more viewers on 30 Rock, that will be a victory for us all.

30 Rock's strength is that, like The Office and Arrested Development, it has a great cast of kooky characters with very well-defined niches. Tina Fey is one of my heroes, I've previously documented my unnatural love for Tracy Morgan, Kenneth and Jenna are both perfect for what they are, and Alec Baldwin could not nail this role any harder.

My favorite Tracy moment of episode 1 was when he was explaining how he likes to help transvestite prostitutes better their lives (encouraging them to go to computer school, study to be a court reporter, etc.).

Best line: "You can be a freaky-deeky and still do data entry!"

In a season when several pilots (Big Shots, Dirty Sexy Money) are squeezing all the sleazy jokes they can out of transvestite hookers, it was wildly refreshing to see 30 Rock take the whole theme in an entirely different direction. Thank you, Tina Fey et. al., for having a fresh voice.

Other highlights:

• I enjoyed the computerized Jerry Seinfeld guest appearances in all NBC shows. It seems like everyone else has ended up in Heroes anyway, so why not him?
• Jack: "She needs to lose 30 pounds or gain 60. Anything in between has no place on television." (What's frightening is that, if you think about it, he's completely right.)
• Kenneth was so cute grinning at Jerry Seinfeld.
• Tracy: "Ask my wife if she's sleeping with D.L. Hughley." (Hmm, I'm thinking that this isn't a random mention since D.L. was on NBC's other 'sketch show' show Studio 60.)
• Jack: "Ha ha! You're going to buy NBC! Like you have $4 million just lying around..." (Ouch.)
• Jack: "There are no bad ideas in brainstorming, Lemon."
• Liz sounds like Jerry Seinfeld when she cries.
• Tracy (when he sees Liz in the white wedding dress): "Oh no! Did a Korean person die?"

This episode was a promising start to season 2. As far as I'm concerned, Tina Fey can take over the world.

Premiere Rating: 8 / 10

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.

2007 Fall Outlook

I'm going to have a lot of television on my plate this fall. Even though three of my favorite shows ever (The OC, Gilmore Girls, and Veronica Mars) were canceled last season, there are still about a million shows that I want to watch. Actually, I'm planning to check out 23 shows this fall. Even I think that's excessive.

Something's gotta give at some point though. Right? Thankfully, Damages is going to wrap up its first season in October, but if everything on this list is still going strong by the time Lost, Kyle XY, Monk, Greek, and Psych come back, I'm going to be screwed.

I'm most excited to see the pilots of all the new shows because we've been hearing about them for almost six months now! It's go time!

The following is a list of shows that I plan on watching (or at least monitoring). I also included a ranking (high, medium, or low) of how excited I am to have each (so far unpremiered) show back.

Sunday:
Desperate Housewives (low), Brothers and Sisters (low)

Monday:

Chuck (high), Heroes (medium -- escaping "low" only because of the addition of David Anders and Kristen Bell to the cast), Aliens in America (medium), Samantha Who? (medium)

Tuesday:

Beauty and the Geek, Reaper (high), Bones (medium), Damages

Wednesday:
Pushing Daisies (high), Private Practice (low), Dirty Sexy Money (high), Gossip Girl, Kid Nation

Thursday:

30 Rock (high), The Office (high), Ugly Betty (medium), Grey's Anatomy (low), Smallville (medium), Without a Trace (low)

Friday:

Moonlight (medium), Men In Trees (medium)

Yikes. And this list doesn't include Viva Laughlin, which I want to watch because it is supposed to be ridiculous and terrible, and Big Shots, which I will try (due to allegiance to Michael Vartan) to watch at least once even though it looks awful.

Hmm. I guess it's good that I really don't have anything else to do...

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.

The Best of the 2006-2007 TV Season!!!

Most Shocking Moments:
"Through the Looking Glass" Lost -- We find out that Jack and Kate both make it off the island in a "game-changing" flash forward.

"In or Out" Ugly Betty -- The mysterious veiled figure is revealed to be not Fey Sommers as expected, but Alex Meade, post gender reassignment surgery!

Funniest Moments:
"The Return" The Office -- Jim and Pam hide Andy's cell phone in the ceiling, causing him to freak out and punch the wall. "That.....was an over-reaction." Yes, Andy Bernard, but it was a hilarious over-reaction.

"Beach Games" The Office -- Andy Bernard falls into the river wearing a blow-up sumo wrestling suit and floats away. Physical comedy at it's best.

"Gay Witch Hunt" The Office -- In the season three pilot, we see a quick flash of Roy's DUI mugshot... and he's a huge mess.

"Swag" Ugly Betty -- When Bradford finds out that Wilhelmina has been charging personal expenses to the magazine like, say, her "butt lift," she responds, "Well, good luck returning my ass!"

Funniest Characters:
Andy Bernard, The Office -- He's just a Cornell graduate trying to take over the world using three sure-fire tactics: name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a hand shake. As he is responsible for two of my Funniest Moments of the season, it doesn't take a degree from Cornell to conclude that Andy belongs in this category.

Tracy Jordan, 30 Rock -- I have an unnatural love for Tracy Morgan. Everything that comes out of his mouth is hilarious, including: his belief that vampires are the best golfers but we'll never know it, his admission that he steals dogs and does the robot backwards into Starbucks, his discovery of anagrams, and "the manatee becomes the mentor."

Justin and Marc, Ugly Betty -- Both the youth who loves jazz hands and the cattiest personal assistant at Mode stole every scene they were in this season.

Dick Casablancas, Veronica Mars -- It's funny. In college I came across literally hundreds (perhaps thousands) of boys who act just like Dick Casablancas and couldn't stand them at all. Yet I love this guy. I love how he's an unapologetic himbo and always ready and willing to say something wildly inappropriate. How amusing people like this are when you personally don't have to deal with them.

Best Performances in a Drama:
Ellen Pompeo, Grey's Anatomy -- Although her acting chops aren't usually the ones people mention when talking Grey's, Ellen really brought it this season. She was especially fantastic in the episode where Ellis miraculously becomes lucid. Watching the look on Meredith face when her mother complains that she's ordinary is like getting kicked in the stomach and Pompeo nailed the confrontational speech and subsequent realization that her mother's Alzheimer's is back. And, showing her range, pre-appendectomy drugged-up Meredith was a riot early in the season and a breath of fresh air in the over-drama that was the third season of Grey's.

T.R. Knight, Grey's Anatomy -- T.R. may not have had the best material to work with this season (even though he leveraged his gayness to get better plots according to Crazy Isaiah Story #3), but he absolutely nailed what he got. His ability to thrive in the extremely drawn-out story line about Burke's hand and the torturous Gizzie scenes proves his value to this show.

Sally Field, Brothers and Sisters -- We like her! We really, really like her! Sally was spot-on throughout the season as Nora, the glue that held the Walkers and this show together. She excelled in both the dramatic moments of dealing with her late-husband's infidelity (the late-night swim comes to mind) and the comedic moments (like the food fight with the mistress) that were my favorite part of the show.

Best Episodes:
"Spit and Eggs" Veronica Mars -- Veronica solves the case and quickly becomes the target of the psycho-villain. It's a cliche on this show for a reason. Making this time even more exciting, Veronica ran frantically down a hallway to dance music, a la vintage Alias. If only all rapists got stabbed by a unicorn horn. Add a crazy Piznarski dance, Wallace talking about "pity balloons," some classic Mac, and Logan smashing a cop car to get in jail to beat the living daylights out of Mercer and you've got one of the best hours of TV this year.

"The Bitch is Back" Veronica Mars -- "After all these years, do you not instinctively fear me?" Veronica asks, and if we didn't, we sure do now. Do not mess with V. In the series' last ep, Veronica goes after the people who posted a sex tape of her on the web, and with friends like Wallace, Weevil, and Logan to mess up cars, go undercover into secret societies, and punch mobsters, she's going to take the bad guys down. And don't forget Keith, whose attempt to cover for his daughter results in the two of them becoming the outcasts they were when the series began. That's called coming full circle, kids, but it's a shame that the CW canceled this amazing show with so much story left to tell.

"Through the Looking Glass" Lost -- It's a flash forward! Whoa! And even though Future Jack seems even more depressed that Present Jack and Past Jack, this episode was one of the best of the year thanks to Sayid snapping an Other's neck with his feet, Hurley and his van saving the day, Sawyer avenging Walt, Charlie's Alias Season 1 finale-esque drowning, the obscured newspaper clipping, the funeral parlor anagram, the mystery man in the coffin, and Kate and Jack's clandestine meeting. Oh, the Alice in Wonderland reference in the episode title is pretty darn cool too.

"Company Man" Heroes -- Heroes really found its stride in this episode, narrowing its focus to the events taking place in the Bennet house as several heroes clash together. Some Lost-style story telling gives us new insights into Noah Bennet's character and he has the Haitian erase his memory to protect Claire Bear.

"The End's Not Near, It's Here" The O.C. -- I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The O.C. rocked it's series finale. The saying good-bye to the Cohen house, the Seth/Ryan hug, the new baby Cohen, the new old house in Berkeley, the few acknowledgements that Marissa Cooper existed and that we loved her, the Julie Cooper college graduation, the Seth/Summer wedding, and the architect Ryan helping out a kid all combined for the perfect ending to one of the coolest shows ever.

Best New Shows:
Heroes, Men In Trees, 30 Rock

Best Comedy:
The Office

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!