Warm Glowing Warming Glow

Come Back, TV!

Television is starting to trickle back from this long hiatus around Christmas.  I thought it might be helpful to start trying to keep track of when we can expect new episodes of important shows:

Sunday, January 14: 24.  Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.  Kiefer's beard looks suitably grody.  (Remember, we've got two whole hours on Sunday and then two more on Monday.)  Spoiler Alert: This season's day begins at 6:00 AM, possibly Eastern Time and Chloe might have a new hairstyle.  That's all we know.  Also tonight: Brothers & Sisters, for what it's worth.  Tonight's episode begins Jason Lewis's arc as a closeted soap star/love interest for Kevin. 

Monday, January 15: More 24.  Also, the Golden Globes, which -- huh.  I had no idea they were already here.  Another spoiler: because they are on NBC, no one will watch them.

Thursday, January 18: The Office, My Name Is Earl, Scrubs, 30 Rock, Ugly Betty and The O.C. are all new. 

Sunday, January 21: Battlestar Galactica returns!  The new episode is entitled "Rapture," which is scary, because remember, when last we left off, Adama was going to nuke the crap out of everything in order to keep the Cylons away from that McGuffin that has something to do with everyone finding their way to Earth.  Meanwhile, on Brothers & Sisters, Marion Ross does what she does best -- stink up the joint as a difficult matriarch.

Monday, January 22: Prison Break returns and so does Heroes.  Prison Break will be picking up the whole lame conspiracy/Terrence Steadman non-murder non-mystery.  Christopher Eccleston joins Heroes.

Tuesday, January 23: Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars are both back.  Gilmore Girls is a Christmas episode, apparently.  The Hell?  I guess we're skipping over Rory's Christmas in London with Logan, despite all the anvils being dropped this spring about the Orbit girl.  Veronica Mars is a Mac episode (yay!) as well as -- duh -- the beginning of the Ed Begley, Jr. murder mystery. -- Peter 

I Hate Anna Nardini

Am I the only one who's actually sort of enjoying this season of Gilmore Girls?  Most of the commentaries I've read have suggested that the magic has gone.  I couldn't disagree more, and I think that last night's episode was an example of all that's going right this season.  We had some very funny throw-away bits, such as Paris and Doyle's hip hop dancing and the 2002 party.  We had an unusually palatable Liz/T.J. subplot.  The Knitathon subplot was a surprisingly deft bit of Stars Hollow wackiness (about which more in a minute).  Most importantly, we finally, finally, finally got to see Luke stand up to that dickslap Anna Nardini.

Anna has been a nightmare from the beginning.  She's basically all of Lorelai's worst qualities, only sanctimonious and joyless.  This week's  passive-aggressive (and then aggressive-aggressive) douchebaggery was just the latest atrocity and thank God, we finally got to see Luke get angry with her.   So that was fun.

I also wanted to say some more about the Knitathon.  I thought that that story, in fact the entire Christopher/carpetbagger plot, really sums up Stars Hollow.  Stars Hollow is very tolerant of certain people -- Lorelai, Luke, Kirk, Taylor -- but that tolerance is not extended beyond a certain point nor to everyone.  I think that Lorelai is exactly like this as well -- note her rules for film-watching, for instance.

Also last night was the finale to the rape mystery on Veronica Mars.  I thought it was pretty inept.  As with the entire arc, there were things I liked, but it felt rushed and a little predictable.   I'm hoping the next arc is better.
-- Peter

Boom Goes the Dynamite

I'm still lumbering through the premiere season, but I'm getting tired.  Last night:

Gilmore Girls.  Another fairly strong episode from Buffy veteran Rebecca Rand Kirshner.  Still no sign of Kelly Bishop, so as far as I'm concerned, the jury is still out on whether or not the show can thrive under David Rosenthal.  But the Lorelai stuff last night was very good.  Way, way too much of Michael DeLuise but I think that even under the Palladinos, he was a character who inspired blind rage, rather than mirth.  (Maybe that's what they were going for?)  The Lane-Zack Mexico bits could have been funnier.

Veronica Mars.  A solid premiere.  Not sure how I feel about the new, grittier opening credits sequence.  I think I like it, though.  Good balance of light and dark -- the A-mystery was fun and bubby, while the revelations of the last few minutes established we're still watching the same show.  I think Chris Lowell is going to be just fine as Duncan 2.0 (giving him Duncan's ugly sweaters was a nice touch).

Friday Night Lights.  Jesus may love football, but I don't.  I did like the eponymous film on which this show is based, though, so I was an easy sell for this show.  I'm not sure I can keep watching it week after week, though.  The camera stuff and the overlapping dialogue require just a little more concentration than I think I can muster week after week -- I've already got The Wire.   

Tonight brings us The Nine, the one about the bank robbery hostage situation, with the flashbacks and everything.   It's supposed to be good.  Plus the return of Lost, plus the Project Runway reunion, plus Jericho and Kidnapped.

My Season Pass Is the Prettiest

More new shows have premiered.  I'm barely keeping up:

Six Degrees.  Haven't watched yet, heard good things.  Weighing whether or not I can handle the Erika Christensen factor.

Brothers & Sisters.  This one left me a little cold.  Generic, no real hook so far.  I love Rachel Griffiths, though, always and forever, so I might give it another try.  Better title: We Are Family. 

Heroes.  Liked it, almost definitely totally on board.  A lot of the individual pieces of the pilot didn't work -- especially the junkie artist with the overwrought girlfriend and most of all Milo Ventimiglia's hair.  Still, it seems like everything's headed somewhere, which is encouraging. 

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. . . and we're out.  I liked the second episode just fine, but I'm not sure that I see where we're going for the remainder of the season.  Where is the suspense, now that Danny and Matt have proven they can take over the show (within a show)?   Oh, and I just remembered: Saturday Night Live is completely irrelevant, so who cares? 

Gilmore Girls.  I read a lot of reviews of the pilot and they all seemed to hang on the same hook: Gilmore Girls is not Gilmore Girls without the Palladinos.  I think I said as much, back when they quit.  Now I don't buy it.  Last night's episode was decent, with a few laugh-out-loud moments, good plot progression and -- very encouraging -- effective use of Liza Weil (Paris).  It's still the same damned show.  But.  The real test will be when we have an Emily episode: those are the ones in which Amy Sherman Palladino really shone and may be the hardest ones to duplicate.

Runaway.  I keep hoping that this is going to turn out to be a small-screen adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan's comic book series.  Didn't hate it, though: appealing young people, some interesting work from Leslie Hope.  Not getting attached, however: it lost something like half of 7th Heaven's (miniscule) audience Monday night.  --Peter

Minstrel Fever

It's the Friday before a holiday weekend, so seriously, nothing is happening around here.  I've even grown bored with the Star Jones saga (except not really).  Anyway, this is sort of related to Gilmore Girls.  No, it is.  Stars Hollow's minstrel, Grant Lee Phillips, has a new CD, Nineteeneighties, and it's streaming right freaking now at AOL Music:

http://music.aol.com/songs/new_releases_full_cds

I'm listening, right freaking now.  It's all covers.  At the moment, I'm listening to a really down-tempo version of "The Killing Moon," which . . . actually really works.  Have a nice weekend.  -- Peter

A Kilo of Pickles

Last night was one of the best nights TV and I have spent together in a long time.  First off, we had a really encouraging episode of Gilmore Girls.  There was a good mix of funny and poignant, the characters felt right, the guest cast was good.  I sort of tuned out during the Luke subplot, but other than that it was solid.

Veronica Mars has hit the point -- I vaguely remember this happening last year as well -- where it's so good it's making me unhappy.  I cannot stand the suspense anymore.  I cannot wait for next week, for the resolution of the bus crash mystery.  Oh, also, I wish I had posted my theory on that weeks ago, because I was right.  I thought that Woody (Steve Guttenberg) was not only the "outing of the century" Peter Ferrer (Luke Frydenger) was promising but was going to be the penultimate solution to the crash mystery.  No, I don't think Woody blew up the bus and actually, I have no good theories about who did.  There are so many loose threads yet to be tied up and have been for so long that it's hard for me to tell which questions have and which have not been answered.  What about Meg's ghost (Alona Tal) telling Veronica (Kristen Bell) that she has something important to say?  Was it that Meg knew about Lucky (James Jordan) and Woody or did she have some other crucial piece of information? 

(Even more suspenseful than the show: we have two weeks to wait until the upfronts.  These are, you know, the presentations the networks give to advertisers and the press, to introduce fall lineups.  As far as I know, CW has not yet picked up Veronica Mars.  I don't know if they've even made a decision.  So I'm sick with worry.) 

After Veronica Mars, I was useless for anything but pacing my living room, cursing Sheriff Lamb (Michael Muhney).   So I was unable to turn away from the Dynasty reunion, Catfights & Caviar, on CBS.  It was perfect: a good mix of awkward, scripted "banter" between Linda Evans and Joan Collins and tons of clips.  I got really sentimental for Dynasty, the shlockiness of which seems really winning, in contrast to the variety of slick schlock we get now.  What I forgot was just how endless those Krystle-on-Alexis catfights were.  That's funny.  Nicollette Sheridan throwing down with Hooters waitresses on Desperate Housewives is about just as cynical as those were, but somehow it's not funny.  -- Peter

Very Bad News

The Palladinos are definitely leaving Gilmore Girls.  Worse, their replacement is crazy.  Amy wrote and directed this season's finale, the aptly titled "Partings," which will air May 16.  I'm going off to sit by myself and cry.  Have a nice weekend!

God Bless You Please, Mrs. Kim

Tonight is a two-hour dose of Alias, the first and second of the six episodes that remain to the cancelled series.  Over the past two (or three?) increasingly awful seasons, my enthusiasm for the show, at one point formidable, has waned.  The last straw was last season's finale, which had most of the cast parachuting into a giant red ball in order to re-enact 28 Days Later.  I ignored most of this season, although I've heard that it has sucked slightly less than the few that preceded it. 

I am, however, almost inappropriately excited about tonight's two hours.  In part, I may be looking forward to a reprieve from the increasingly intellectually taxing Veronica Mars and Lost.  In part, though, I'm actually looking forward to the resolution of the cliffhanger on which we left the show last October or something.  When last we left off, a very pregnant Sydney (Jennifer Garner) had been kidnapped and interrogated by an unknown enemy, who wanted information supposedly confided in Sydney by her late (although probably really alive) fiance, Vaughn (Michael Vartan).  After hallucinating her face off, Sydney lied to her captors, then escaped, only to discover that she's on an oil tanker in the middle of the ocean and it looks like the only other person on the ship is evil, awesome Kelly Peyton (Amy Acker).  Oh, and we know, although Sydney does not, that the mastermind of this whole kidnapping/MacGuffin-finding plot is her mother, Irina Derevko (Lena Olin).  Meanwhile, Sydney's father, Jack (Victor Garber), and a random French friend (Élodie Bouchez), tortured and killed some other random guy (Patrick Bauchau) in a lovely Paris apartment.  If I remember correctly, they cut off his ear.  (I'm guessing that tonight's episode won't revisit that business, but I wanted to mention it because Patrick Bauchau and lovely Paris apartments are cool.)

It's possible, also, that my enthusiasm for tonight's Alias is a result of a decent episode of Gilmore Girls.  Amy Sherman-Palladino wrote and directed, so it's no surprise that it was good.   The real MVP, though, was Emily Kuroda, who plays Mrs. Kim.  Kuroda always does a nice job of selling and underplaying Mrs Kim.  She has, over the past six seasons, gradually turned a caricature into one of the most relatable characters in Stars Hollow.  Last night Kuroda had three really great scenes to play and she nailed them. 

If You're Out On the Road . . . I Will Still Find Fault With Something You've Done

The AV Club has a long article about mid-season television shows here.  It's pretty interesting.  Noel Murray and Scott Tobias are generally such thoughtful and thorough writers that they make me want to stop posting.  This article made me feel better about myself, though, because in it, Murray admits that he watched nearly every episode of Joey.

Another thing I feel bad about is the graceless segue I'm about to make.  No, seriously.  I feel like a nag for complaining about Gilmore Girls so much.  It's still a funny little show that does the serious stuff very well as well.  Even this season, which, I keep telling you, has not been the strongest, has included some brilliant moments. The Rory-Lorelai schism was a plot point that had to happen, in order to test the show's central conceit, but a story that no one ever really wanted to watch and one that, I'm guessing, even the show's creators, Amy Sherman Palladino and Daniel Palladino, didn't want to write.   However, the way the Palladinos tackled that story was almost perfect.  I am getting choked up right now just thinking about Rory's dream sequence in which Madeline Albright stepped in as Lorelai, to wish Rory (Alexis Bledel) a happy birthday, delivering exactly the lines Lorelai (Lauren Graham) delivered in the pilot.  That could not have been better.  Also great was "Friday Night's Alright for Fighting," in which the entire Gilmore family rehashed the first half of the season in a series of dinner conversations, with no connective tissue at all between scenes.  This was a complete departure from the way the show is usually constructed, and yet it worked, beautifully.

Mostly, though, I think I'm right to be dissatisfied with how the show is doing this season.  It's failing on all of the levels on which it usually succeeds.  In terms of long-term plot construction, there's a lot that doesn't make sense: Luke's long-lost daughter, while not that credulity-stretching, was introduced like an Acme anvil; Luke and Lorelai's relationship has deteriorated over a series of misunderstandings so simple that it's hard to resist shouting into the TV; the resolutions of both primary (Rory's absence from Yale) and secondary storylines (Lane and Zack's break-up) have been sketched in so crudely that the throughlines are hard to read.   

Scene and episode construction don't work, either.  Last night's episode featured a pointless return of Milo Ventimiglia as Jess, Luke's "bad boy" nephew and Rory's Season 3 boyfriend.  The scenes among the principles were so ham-handledly written, so artlessly directed and so inefficiently edited, that I felt like I was watching a spin-off in the making.  Scene after scene of Jess and his one-off wacky friends played out; Luke (Scott Patterson) and Rory showed up, but any sort of chemistry among the characters, or even a sense that the actors had ever seen each before, was missing.  At some point Luke addressed Jess as "nephew."  Who does that?  Why didn't he just turn to the camera to introduce Jess to the audience at home?  That would have been more efficient.   

The cast remains incapable of disappointing, however.   Last night's saving grace was a throwaway exchange between Lorelai and her mother, Emily (Kelly Bishop).  The writing was not particularly sharp and Bishop was playing aspects of Emily we've seen before, but the line delivery saved the whole thing.

Ugh.  Sorry about the long rant.  -- Peter