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Veronica Mars Death Watch

I'm pretty happy with how Veronica Mars wrapped up the Dean O'Dell murder mystery last night.  The episode itself was really strong: the Veronica-Tim team-up/duel was a highlight and the plot twists moved through just quickly enough.  The writers performed some pretty impressive sleight-of-hand, making a reveal that I think many viewers had predicted seem startling.

Of course no one else is watching, which is frustrating.  I'm resigned to losing the show at the end of this season.  Michael Ausiello has me reconsidering that, though, here.   This is the pertinent paragraph:

"Ausiello: I just e-emailed Mars' main man Rob Thomas for an update, and here's what he wrote back: 'We're very much on the fence for a fourth season. My amateur handicapping of our situation — 60/40 in our favor. We are shooting the finale as a season finale — not as a series finale. There will be no alternate. If they do try to get rid of us, we're not going to make it easy for them.' I gotta tell ya, there are few things in life I enjoy more than a juicy Rob Thomas soundbite."

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I was going to do a more detailed review of The Black Donnellys here, but then I read that it sort of hemorrhaged viewers last night, so will it be around long enough to make a lot of discussion matter?  I'm not sure.

I actually sort of liked it.  Jonathan Tucker is good.  The showy narrative stuff -- fancy shots and cuts, an unreliable narrator, a hazy frame tale -- is pleasant rather than distracting.  A few of the narrative twists totally worked for me.  Of course on some level it's pure blarney: Angela's Ashes as shot by Guy Ritchie.  This is acceptable, however, because the story is interesting and the characters are mostly pretty likable.  -- Peter

It's Time to Let Go

And now it's dead.  Maybe it was my general bad mood and compromised health, but last night's O.C. finale didn't move me as much as last week's ("The Night Moves") did.  No, I think that, even at full strength, I need a higher earned sentiment to contrivance ratio. 

Basically, the first 45 minutes were, although intermittently pretty funny, more water to tread.  The Ryan-Taylor split was never explained and ultimately led nowhere.  The Julie-Bullit-Frank story was slightly better because it led to a true pay-off.  The whole Berkeley house thing made me feel awful for that very understanding couple.  Does amniotic fluid stain?  "This is not the bathroom" was a nice line.  The Summer-Seth thing really seemed to come out of nowhere. 

I liked the very end, though.  I liked Ryan saying goodbye to Seth and to the house.  I liked the flashbacks.  I liked the flashforwards. 

Overall, though, maybe last week's episode was a better series finale? 

More Hills Articles

I apologize in advance for the overwhelming skeeviness of, well, all of it:

This is more press coverage for The Hills.  I meant to post it the other day, but it just left me so confused.  Yeah, we knew that Spencer (or the character of "Spencer" on the show called The Hills, who may or may not bear any resemblance to his portrayer, Spencer Pratt) is a scumbag, but he's also Heidi Montag's agent?   Is "Spencer" also "Heidi"'s agent?  Has he always been?  And why are we not getting to see "The Godfather" on the show?  He seems like he would be awesome TV.  Maybe he had scheduling conflicts? 

Brody Jenner responds to People (of course) about the Details article here.  Us Weekly has an interview with Heidi here.    -- Peter

Can We Still Call It Fro-Yo?

I had no idea what Pinkberry was when I started watching The Hills. I eventually figured out from Gawker and Defamer, but This New York Times article does the best job of explaining the phenomenon.  My favorite part is the quote from the owner of (the kosher!) one of the alleged knock-offs:

"'I don’t think we’re the same,' said Uzi Moses, the owner of Berri Good. 'We use different fonts.' On top of that, he said, 'You know we have celebrities here, right? Are you aware of that?'"

More Shenanigans

Dear Jenny,

I cry shenanigans, again, on last night's Top Design.  Why did Carisa win, despite actually letting her client down?  Wasn't Matt's room much, much better?  More importantly, for the fourth week in a row, someone was sent packing for no apparent reason, except -- I suspect -- that the person who really deserved to go made better television.  Maybe it's just my O.C. grief/flu, but I'm becoming very impatient with this show. 

On the other hand, I do think that our dear Todd Oldham is coming into his own, as a design mentor.   Jonathan Adler is really growing on me.  That "If I had to live in this room, I would shoot myself" frown was even funnier in the episode than in the promos.  The promos did not include the brilliant, non-verbal exchange between Adler and Kelly Wearstler.  Also, we still have Goil.  It might amuse you to learn that our friend A--, who initially dismissed my favorite designer thusly: "I hate lavender glasses!  On dudes!" had fallen under his spell by the end of the hour: "He's just so nice!"

What do you think?  Are you even still watching?  Is anyone else?  How much longer do we have to wait for the return of Project Runway? 

Love,

-- Pete

"This is Fox, not Fox Searchlight"

I probably should have tried to do a week-long send-off to The O.C., but I'm literally, physically ill with grief.  Anyway, Alan Sepinwall interviews Josh Schwartz here.   I'm not sure I buy network tinkering as the sole cause of the show's creative slump in the second and third seasons, but I'm sure it had an effect.  -- Peter

"I've been controlling animals since I was six."

Another week of Sweeps stunts:

24.  Wow.  James Cromwell is a bastard.  "Don't make me murder my grandson."  That's the most passive-aggressive threat ever.  Kind of a thrilling chase at the end, with Milo and DoomedSisterInLaw. 

Heroes.  Eh.  Felt like reading water until next week, when, according to the NBC promotions monkeys, "Someone's going to fly, someone's going to die."  I'm trying to think if we learned anything new or saw anything cool.  Oh, Sylar can now melt pots and pans.  That was cool.  Jessica as member of the Linderman equivalent of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad was kind of fun, although it got less fun when Parkman survived being thrown out a window. 

Gilmore Girls.  Chris and Lorelai . . . I wasn't really paying attention during their final break-up scene, because I was listing all the lost opportunities in my head: I think it was a serious mis-step to give Emily that speech about how Lorelai has to learn to compromise if she wanted to save her marriage and then never pay that off.  Rory and Logan . . . I was hoping they were going to play Rory's crush on the T.A. a little differently.  I'm still waiting for Logan to be revealed as the philanderer we all kind of know he is.  Maybe the Rosenthal regime likes Logan?  I still find him smarmy.

Veronica Mars. Well, hell.  A week in which Veronica doesn't do anything completely atrocious.  That alone was an improvement.  Plus, we had some serious progress in the Dean Begley, Jr. mystery.  Plus, an interesting A-plot, although I'm going to be sad next week when we learn that pretty, pretty Josh murdered his father.  Not enough Wallace, either: couldn't we have excised a few scenes of Logan getting life lessons from Little Girl God?

Lost.  Slept through, which is too bad, because it sounds like it was a good one?  Stuff happened?  Should I give it another chance?

Ugly Betty.  Another good episode: some funny stuff from Michael Urie, Mark Indelicato and Becki Newton, continuing excellent handling of the Alex/Alexis subplot, good mix of subplots overall.  I wonder if the network is giving the producers notes about how often Eric Mabius has to be shirtless.  Otherwise, I don't understand his story last night.  Oh, right -- stuntcasting!  Lucy Liu is still kind of lost on me.  On the other hand, Jerry O'Connell was pretty good as the homophobic jackass. 

The O.C.  I totally fell for every minute of that.  I mean, not so much Taylor being helpless and stupid, and not so much Kirsten and Sandy's sense of entitlement, but Julie and Kaitlin bonding in the midst of adversity?  Yes.  Ryan appearing to be about to bleed out for the entire freaking hour?  Oh God.  You know, it's the penultimate episode, so I really kind of half thought that they could kill Ryan off.  Really effective, and the meta-stuff was kind of fun, and the trip down memory lane.  Seth trading the Range Rover for the shopping cart was a nice touch and good foreshadowing of decimation of the Cohen mansion. 

The Office.  This was maybe the best episode of the year?  Jim as a vampire?  Steve Carell channeling Ricky Gervais as a motivational speaker?  Creed?  I think any episode that has Creed in it, at all, is automatically really funny.  -- Peter

Cintra Wilson!

No matter how many times I see this, it cracks me up. 

Cintra Wilson's Salon obituary of Anna Nicole Smith (our Diana) is the best, too. 

"Oh no. I'm in Buffalo."

Dear Jenny,

I don't know what to say about last night's Top Design, possibly because I've watched it only once so far.  Um, cabana cabana, Carisa, that other dude, that other other dude, foul-mouthed Elizabeth . . . OK.  I can go. 

Good challenge, although I didn't buy all the last-minute shenanigans: you have to finish in an hour, and I didn't tell you before, but you have to put it up on the beach.  Hard to really care about cabanas, also: I like the ocean, but I can't really assess what makes a good or bad design for a cabana, because we're state beach people: I know how to lay a towel, but that's about where it ends.  I thought each design was a little ugly, a little vulgar, in its own way, but maybe that's the point?

I am sorry that foul-mouthed Elizabeth was kicked off.  I didn't really see her as the most to blame for the Miami Disaster.  Didn't Matt suggest the ugly colors?  So how is that her fault?  Elizabeth's work so far has been pretty good -- she was Goil's partner in the winning room the first week -- so, again, I wonder what part the producers had in her laterdecoratoration, over more deserving candidates such as Carisa or that other dude, or Matt for that matter. 

I have to confess that I'm sort of swooning over Goil.  He's smart, he's nice, he's nice to look at, and he apparently owns about 200 pairs of designer glasses.  How fun is that? 

Adler is growing on me.  Last night, I enjoyed, "Oh, no.  I'm in Buffalo," and his facial expressions are often much funnier and communicate more than what he's saying.  By the way, here's his defense of the much-maligned "See ya later, decorator."

I also feel like Todd Oldham is growing into his role as Gunn-figure.  This week we saw him giving helpful advice and it seemed to me that he anticipated a lot of the judges' criticism -- although, I think he may have supported Team Tahiti's decision to leave off the roof.   I'd like to see Todd relax just a little more -- I keep thinking about him on House of Style -- he was riveting, in part, because of his obvious ease with the camera -- he and Cindy Crawford also had great chemistry.   I'd like to see more of that. 

Love,

-- Pete