Welcome Back, "Lost"

So, if you weren’t quite aware, the season premier makes it as clear as it can: “Lost” is a science fiction show.

The audience response to this, as judged by its steady decline in viewership over the last year, has been, “OHHHH NO YOU DON’T!”

See, a lot of people feel like the show’s pulled some kind of bait-and-switch. They started watching the show thinking it was a character-based “struggle for survival” kind of series. And having recently watched four seasons straight through, I can tell you – other than a few weird visions and an occasional noisy monster, there weren’t too many that, just a few seasons later, we’d have a character try to explain, in his best “okay-nobody-freak-out-here” voice, that they’ve all become unstuck in time.

A monster in the jungle is one thing – it’s tangible. Still in the confines of an action-survival story. It’s something you can fight and kill. (At least, it was until it showed up on screen as an undulating sentient smoke-cloud, but anyway.)

But even if you explain the time-travel through a handy record-skipping metaphor and sciency-sounding explanations…it’s still time-travel. It’s conceptual science fiction that, bottom line, is NOT REAL.

That’s a harder pill for some viewers to swallow (and let’s face it – science fiction is still a niche genre). So for all the talk about “drop-off in quality,” or “frustrated fans,” I’d wager the real reason a great number of people bailed is because they didn’t want to watch a show that was becoming more and more about the space-time continuum and less about The Gang Hunting Boar.

Additionally, last year’s introduction of mystery-building flash-forward and fewer character-building flashbacks was a clear sea-change from character- to plot-based storytelling. A lot of viewers saw that as producers saying: “We care about the weirdo sci-fi crap now more than the characters, and you should, too.”

But that’s not true. In fact, the only reason the show can now successfully explore out-and-out sci-fi territory is because of those four seasons of character- and relationship-building. Because at the end of the day, a story only matters if you care about who it’s happening to. And the producers have been very careful to cultivate that concern.

(Which is why an episode where, say, Desmond’s consciousness is pinballing through time still works – because despite the lunatic premise, the real story is still about a guy who couldn’t possibly be further away from the one he loves, and it’s killing him.)

As for the actual episode(s), I thought they were very enjoyable, particularly for what they suggest – that the off-island present will be our “core” narrative (and the 70-hour timeframe to get back to the island would hint that “off-island” may not be a term we’ll be using all season), with the time-bouncing islanders (under the anti-Kate/Jack leadership of Juliet and Sawyer, has some interesting potential) making up the “flashback b-story,” possibly witnessing Great Moments in Island History as they happen (which would certainly be a novel way of answering some long-term questions, wouldn’t it?).

Some final advice: If you start talking about “Lost” and someone mentions how they dropped it because it got too “out there” (or some variation), just tell them that good stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Which requires change from one section to another, sometimes with unexpected results.

And if they don’t like it, they can just turn on frickin’ “Law and Order,” because Sam Waterston will never die.

Over the last few months, I wrote essays on each season of Lost, and I recommend them (of course, I would):

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4 (in two parts, here and here)

"'Pushing Daisies"' Beautiful Corpse

(Written at Noon on 11/20)


“Did you hear ‘Pushing Daisies’ isn’t doing so hot in the ratings?”

“Boy, I hear that ‘Pushing Daisies’ is close to cancellation.”



“Hot dang, that there colorful show ‘bout the pie guy ain’t long for this world, do it?”

Yes, I know, everyone. I know. STOP TELLING ME, I KNOW!

And yet, oddly, I’m not too horrified.

I love “Pushing Daisies” unreasonably. It makes me laugh at puns. The more absurd it gets, the more gushily sweet it gets, the more it makes me smile. But if it doesn’t get picked up after its 13th second-season episode is complete, I won’t be mad. I’ll be bummed, and upset, but not mad.

I was mad when “Firefly” got cancelled, because it seemed to get shafted from the start. It never had a chance to be anything other than a cult hit.

I was mad when “Arrested Development” was cancelled because…well, looking back, I feel like it was part of a broader “red state, blue state” argument: “Nobody will watch ‘Arrested Development,’ but ‘According to Jim’ is still on the air?! THIS is why the country’s in the shitter!”

But if “Pushing Daisies” goes this year, I’ll understand why. It wasn’t for a lot of tastes. It’s not ABC’s fault – they promoted it heavily, they actually kept it on the same night, the same time, for two seasons. They made sure the season 1 DVD set was available before premiering season 2. They did everything right.

Usually when a show gets cancelled prematurely, it bugs me because like most fans, I get attached to the actors. For instance, I feel bad for 90% of the casts of “Buffy” and “Angel.” It’s just a fact of the acting profession that in most cases, the cast goes on to crap guest-starring roles or featured roles on inferior shows.

But most of the “Pushing Daisies” cast come from well-regarded Broadway careers, and that’s where they’ll go back. They’ll be okay.

The other sticking point with early-death on shows like this is there will almost certainly be unresolved storythreads. I’m not sure if they can take care of both the Ned’s Father and Emerson’s Daughter stories in the next seven episodes.

But even there, I’m covered. Bryan Fuller has said he’ll finish the story as a comic series if he can’t wrap it up on the show. And with the right publisher and artist (I’m thinking Oni Press), it’ll be a delightful package.

Frankly, if it goes now, the only bummer is we won’t get a full musical episode, and given the talents of the cast, that will be a real shame.

So if “Pushing Daisies” is a goner after 26 episodes, I’ll mourn it. But it’ll join “Arrested Development,” “Wonderfalls,” and “SportsNight” on my DVD shelf as another Beautiful Corpse series – killed long before it could decline in quality.

Which is not a bad way for a TV show to be remembered. Particularly one about a guy who can bring dead things back to bold, technicolor life.



(UPDATE, 8:55 PM: Well, damn it. Good thing I spent time writing this at work, huh? Anyway, I stand by it. I'm bummed, but not mad. If they don't bother airing the last seven episodes...THEN I'll be mad.



Okay, maybe I'm a little mad now. Just a little. I mean, really, ABC. You're cutting this one, but keeping "According to Jim," "Private Practice," and actually RENEWING "Scrubs"? What the HELL does Jim Belushi have on your executives, that he's proved so invincible?!)

Tuesday Throwdown: "Fringe" Vs. "The Mentalist"

Last week’s “Fringe” featured an “Audrey II”-esque plant thing squeezing a man’s heart. What did last week’s “The Mentalist” have? Its lead character explaining the concept of a memory-tower to his co-workers.

You might be surprised which I found more interesting.

It’s all about the successful execution of a procedural. “The Mentalist” aspires to be nothing more than an engaging detective show, and as a result, everything it does above-and-beyond – things like character development, personality, and understated visual and tonal style – make it that much more impressive.

By contrast, “Fringe” seems to think it’s a lot better than it is. It’s so sure people get that it’s “not just” a mere procedural – by dropping increasingly annoying “Larger Forces At Work” hints and allusions to upcoming Stories To Be Told (including a rather smarmily-titled episode called “In Which We Meet Mr. Jones”) – that it seems to have ignored the fact that it has so far told basically the same story five or six times in a row now.

In fact, it seems a bit arrogant about that fact, having Lance Reddick irritably inform his subordinate that she’s always going to have more questions and basically, she should consider that just a part of the job, because she’ll know more when he’s ready to tell her.

This is the producers momentarily hijacking a character to tell viewers to stop whining about repetitive stories, and stop complaining that being deliberately obtuse isn’t the same as telling an engaging story. Because it’s all Part of The Bigger Plan, you see. And the producers erroneously assume we care about The Plan.

By now, viewers are extremely savvy to the precarious scaffolding that is “Big Picture Storytelling.” We’ve seen when it goes right: “The Wire,” and perhaps “Lost.” And we’ve seen when it goes wrong: “Heroes,” and off-seasons of “24.”

My advice to “Fringe” is to take up a page from “The Mentalist”: don’t worry about the Big Picture. It’s less important to viewers than you think. What viewers like is engaging weekly stories. If they actually build to something more, great. But it’s never the reason to watch a show.

Meanwhile, instilling a rigid “freak-of-the-week” format – to get viewers used to seeing weird crap by redoing the same story with minor variations each week, while also draping a larger picture – is actually a bit insulting to the viewer.

Unfortunately “Fringe’s” problems are wider-spread. While “The Mentalist” has a cast that starts with the beatific charismata of Simon West and is uniformly enjoyable overall, “Fringe” is kneecapped with the presence of Anna Torv and Jasika Nicole, two frankly terrible actresses in underwritten roles.

The worst part? Neither character is actually necessary for the main plots. And Anna Torv is the ostensible lead character!

(And for now we’re ignoring the patent silliness of the “science” involved in the stories. I don’t need it to actually be plausible. It’s helpful when it sounds plausible, but even that isn’t really necessary when you’ve got the amusingly loopy mad scientist explaining it. I only need it to sound interesting. Which is iffy from case to case.)

Anyway. Both “Fringe and “The Mentalist” have scored full-season orders, so I’ll follow each through until May, hoping from the best from each. But while “The Mentalist” has actually delivered more than expected each week, “Fringe” currently has quite an uphill climb.

ISTV Special Report: Romance No Longer In The Air

Why is TV so against hurried coupling?

“How I Met Your Mother” and “The Office” have both plowed through their Big Relationship stories in record time, and it’s…well, it’s damn weird, and yet totally expected.

“How I Met Your Mother” walks an odd tight-rope balancing the audience’s expectations. There’s a frame of mind that thinks once lead character Ted meets the titular woman in question, the show’s over. That the series should end with the line, “…And that’s how I met your mother.”

Another line of thought is that the audience should actually get to know the mother, which would mean she could be introduced well before the show is over.

(This is the line of thought that, despite the best efforts of the creators to dissuade it, leads some conspiracy theorists – like, say, me – to conclude the mother is Wendy the Waitress, who’s been around since the start of the series.)

Still, the dismissal of Sarah Chalke’s character after a hurried wedding attempt felt like the writers realized they’d written themselves into a corner, and their breakup (by bringing in old flame Jason Jones) felt arbitrary and rushed. Ideally the breakup is a gateway to a larger story, just as Ted and Robin’s breakup at the end of season 2 informed Ted’s behavior during the strike-abbreviated season 3.

But the difference between the Robin break-up and this one is, we knew from the first episode how Ted and Robin’s relationship would go down. Teasing a wife for Ted and then backing off smacks of writers trying to stretch a story-arc past its expiration date. Not a big deal on this show, since the rest of the cast easily carries the weight – and Barney’s interest in Robin creates a slow-burning secondary romantic spirit – but it’s a weird thing for a sitcom to promote “Lost”-levels of continuity irritation.

+++++

Meanwhile, “The Office” had to figure out how to get rid of Holly, Michael Scott’s perfect girl (read: totally adorable dork). Now, I don’t believe this was a half-assed decision – they knew when they got Academy-Award nominee Amy Ryan that she probably had some other stuff coming up, job-wise (like, say, a Clint Eastwood movie).

But after a few episodes teasing the relationship and one of them actually getting together, Holly and Michael (due to her corporate-mandated transfer seven hours away) split quite suddenly (though narratively, it made total sense – Dunder-Mifflin clearly recalled the last time Michael dated within the company, so…probably a smart move on their part).

Nevertheless, it's the mark of a great show that they could not only create a character as absurd-yet-realistic as Michael Scott, but create a believable love-interest for him. So here's hoping that Holly will return at some point.

In the case of both shows, by removing the love interest, they've reset the clock on a part of their larger narratives. Dramas that do this are (often rightly) lambasted for this kind of reboot. But comedies have a little more leeway, and as said, both shows are pretty clever with their larger viewpoints.

So if you hear anyone complaining about "jumping the shark," I would advise an authoritative, ISTV Global Stronghold-sanctioned slap.

I Speak TV Couples Counseling II

(Continuing our advice column for the staggeringly dumb males featured in commercials.)

Dear, Guy who scopes out women on his cell phone during a coffee date with a lady-friend,

When she catches you taking pictures of girls on your cell phone, and then actually texts you to tell you, "Dude, WTF!" And you ask, "What? What?"

She may be willing to put up with a lot of your crap, and so you may be getting mixed signals. Allow us to answer to your question. Her answer to, "What? What?" is, "I'm thinking I should've dropped your inconsiderate, leering frat-boy ass months ago, that's what."

We hope this has been helpful.

So getting down to brass tacks: what are we watching this fall?


Sunday: "Dexter" and "True Blood"
Monday: "How I Met Your Mother"
Tuesday: "House," "Fringe," and "The Mentalist"
Wednesday: "Pushing Daisies"
Thursday: "The Office" and "30 Rock"
Friday: "Life"


Let's take a couple posts to look at how my favorites are holding up, now that we're deeper into their new seasons.



“Dexter”:
Oh, goddamn it. We might be in trouble. As the A-story between Dexter and D.A. Jimmy Smits gets more complicated and interesting, we’re getting smacked in the face by the "Dexter" Curse: increasingly annoying B, C, and D stories.


B! Deb is being lured into a relationship with an informant and an internal affairs investigation against a new detective; C! Angel feels lonely; and D! LaGuerta’s got some case that ties in with D.A. Jimmy Smits. At least LaGuerta’s plot will likely come back to the A-plot, but man, do I not care about Angel’s Lonely Cop Life - and I like Angel!


The problem with “Dexter” as a series is that the only interesting thing about it is the lead character – any time the plot checks in on the supporting crew, it turns into, well, a mediocre cop show.


I thought they learned this in season two, when they tied Deb with the FBI agent hunting her brother, and Doakes was instrumental to the plot's resolution. And this season started its side-plot promisingly, showing how Angel’s promotion has affected his relationship with the cops investigating Dexter’s accidental killing.

Really thought that would cover a lot of ground, but here we are with Angel getting busted by a cop undercover as a hooker, and Deb mysteriously drawn to a couple of dudes we don’t care about.


Come on, show, you’re better than that.


“Pushing Daisies”:
I love how much the characters’ psychological backstories are informing the emotional core of the show, grounding it in believable human needs even as the visual puns go hog-wild with easy nun and clown gags.

While, say, a car in a lake holding the bodies of 17 drowned clowns is wacky and goofy and all that, it’s the emotional themes of absent families and how that dictates the behavior of the characters that makes the show brilliant.


Even though he’s the lead, I still feel like Lee Pace doesn’t get enough credit for his portrayal of Ned the Piemaker. His closed body language and barely-disguised need for affection isn’t just a response to being in love with a girl he can’t touch. He’s becoming aware that his own childhood abandonment has affected him more than he’s realized, and it’s making for great, slow-build storytelling (since the audience has been shown his deadbeat dad will be returning soon).

And I won’t lie – the subtle references to Ned and Chuck’s unconventional sex-life crack me up. On ABC at family hour, no less! Good for you, show!



"Heroes":
Quick update: every time I read a new recap of a "Heroes" episode, I feel really good about the decision to drop it. Just putting that out there, for those of you who keep watching. You know who you are. You don't need to feel that sense of shame every Monday at nine, people!



Next time: "Fringe" vs. "The Mentalist"! Stupid scheduling bastards have to make me choose?! Also: "True Blood": Annoying, pompous, or pulpy entertainment? Or is it all three?
Also, also: I'm watching "Life"? Really? I had no idea!

ISTV Couples Counseling

Today, the I Speak TV Global Stronghold presents our first romantic counseling session for TV. It's come to our attention that men on television - particularly in commercials - are portrayed as either thoughtless boobs, or simply retarded (generally when it comes to healthy food consumption).

Never fear, we're here to help. And so, we present our new advice column, "Open Advice Letters to Morons on Commercials":

Dear the guy who sings catchy, Jason-Mrazy jingles about wishing he'd known about his girlfriend's credit rating before trying to buy a house, and ending up living in her parents' basement instead:

Did you, at some - and any - point in your relationship, attempt to have a serious discussion about finances prior to your apparently seat-of-the-pants, wild-hair-up-your-ass decision to apply for a mortgage loan?

Because I'm thinking all the free credit reports in the world wouldn't have made up for that straight-ahead five-minute chat.

Oh, and by the way, Mr. Accoustic guitar, three-day-scruff, uncombed hair, wide-eyed-like-you've-been-awake-for-days, track-jacket-in-the-afternoon-wearing troubadour...how's your credit, hmm? Making (excuse the pun) boatloads of cash at your job waiting tables at a pirate-themed seafood restaurant?

So here's some advice: Don't foist all the blame on the girl whose parents are nice enough to put your penniless ass up in their basement. And how about you back up a bit before you write another cute little ditty about your girlfriend's shitty credit?

Asshole.

We'll be back next week with another column, attempting to help out the guy who thought it'd be a good idea to snap pictures of women's asses with his cameraphone while his lady-friend watches the whole damn thing.

Because we are here to help.

Bobby Flay: Food Network Asshole

So let me get the premise of this "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" show straight:

Bobby Flay, TV personality-chef, practices dishes, and then goes to the restaurants of people who have worked hard to build a reputation on these dishes. Where it's a sense of neighborhood pride, like say, buffalo wings in Buffalo.

And then Bobby Flay pops up during a crowded public promotion at the chef's own restaurant, and challenges that chef to "defend his title" regarding his/her signature dish.

Now, I know absolutely nothing about Bobby Flay. I am not a regular Food Network viewer. I just stumbled across this show.

But I have to ask: What kind of asshole is Bobby Flay?

Best-case scenario for him: He wins the taste-off, humiliating the hard-working cooks who have spent a lot of time and hard work developing a specific flavor and style that's earned them recognition. Which makes him a total dick.

Worst-case: He is beaten by the cooks, and he looks incompetent.

I'm sure, behind the scenes, the Food Network contacts all the restaurants and they agree, because hey, free publicity. But nevermind that. Based only on the narrative of the show...what the hell is the point of this show, other than to make Bobby Flay seem like some kind of TV-star egomaniac who thinks he can do better than the local pride?

Honestly...what a jag-off.

"The Mentalist": Not Bad At All

As previously stated: I am not a procedural fan. And so, by extension, not really a fan of anything on CBS. I will take personality over verisimilitude any day. And considering half the science of the "CSI"-style shows is way off anyway, why not focus on the things that make crime interesting: People?

With this in mind, “The Mentalist” was very enjoyable. Which has me on guard, because it’s on a network that tends to cancel their more original fare, and it’s on opposite “Fringe,” which has gotten a crapload more attention.

Anyway. “The Mentalist” features Simon West as Patrick Jane, a former fake-psychic in the John Edwards (no, the other one, think back – yeah, remember that asshole?) mold. After the murder of his family at the hands of a serial killer who didn’t take kindly to the BS “psychic” assistance he was giving the cops, Jane dropped the shtick and started using his keen observational skills in conjunction with a made-up-sounding but actually real California Bureau of Investigation (so just be happy the show’s not called “CBI,” which I guarantee you was the subject of at least one production meeting).

The smartest thing the pilot does is to have a sort of mini-pilot within the first five minutes that succinctly shows what Jane does, how he uses those skills, and his general attitude towards his work (his calm response to police who burst in just a leeeetle too late to stop a suspect’s shooting: “This isn’t as bad as it looks.”).

There’s a level of confidence in the episode that’s rare and appreciated in a pilot. Confidence in the strength of the show, yes, but also confidence in the viewer.

We’re allowed to grasp the specifics of the upcoming series without a lot of spoonfeeding or exposition to beat into our brains What It's About. We get that Jane is talented by watching him use those talents. We get to know the supporting players through their behavior: Cho’s staggering insensitivity, Rigsby’s quiet consideration, Van Pelt’s rookie mistakes, and Lisbon’s…well, right now she appears to be Cuddy to Jane’s House, but the show is basically "What if House actually solved murder mysteries instead of medical mysteries...and also was more pleasant to be around" (or, to address the obvious, "What if 'Psych' wasn't so damn wacky?"), so the taskmaster/babysitter role has to be there.

I also liked that the characters actually seem to know and like each other – which feels rare on investigative shows. They eat dinner together, they tease each other, they disagree without it becoming a major dramatic point. When Jane shows his atheist leanings to the Christian Van Pelt, neither one comes off as stupid. It’s refreshing.

(And there’s also a nice little jab at crime-scene procedurals, when a CSI enthusiastically describes his take on the murder, and Jane responds with mild distain, “You enjoy your work too much, my friend...I find you irksome.” Which is a word that needs to get more play.)

Now: A good pilot does not mean a good series. So, assuming this one doesn't die quickly, I recommend "The Mentalist" with reservations. We’ll just have to follow the show’s magician's-secret tagline advice and “Watch closely.”

Be Smarter, TV! (Part 2): "Heroes"

Characters realizing they have some essential skill sets they’re not using – like, say, basic human intelligence – would reeeeallly help out “Heroes,” which just returned with a bombastic two-hour premiere.

There’s a lot to like about “Heroes” – for one thing, there’s nothing else like it on TV right now. It is a full-on superhero soap opera. But that's part of the problem - it seems to be taking a lot of cues from similarly-soapy mid-70’s Marvel comics, ignoring the fact that those stories were based less on logic and more on the limited amount of pages they had to tell a tale.

So the writers have a lot of real live people behaving as stupidly as a hastily-written comic book character might, while hoping real live viewers will accept it.

Let’s take the series’ most consistently stupid character: resident scientist Dr. Mohinder Suresh, ironically enough. The writers seem to be following the character template of X-Men character Dr. Henry McCoy, The Beast.

Way back when, McCoy concocted what he thought was a cure to his mutant genes. When bad guys came to his lab looking to kill him and steal the formula for nefarious ends, he hastily swallowed the potion, and as a result mutated further, growing blue fur and fangs.

Now on “Heroes” we have Mohinder, who – after studying the body chemistry of a girl who is basically a walking plague whenever she gets upset – develops a potion he thinks would give anyone superpowers. Which is all of a sudden important to him for some reason that's never come up before.

Plague-Girl quite rightly points out that this formula at least needs further study, and at best should be destroyed. So let’s play “Choose Your Own Adventure.” Does Mohinder:
A) Dispose of the no-doubt toxic sample in a proper, EPA-approved way, like any half-smart scientist would know how to;
B) Contemplate tossing the sample into New York Harbor despite its potentially catastrophic effects on the local sea life, or
C) Cram the whole thing straight into his veins for no apparent reason?

If you guessed A, I’m sorry, you terribly smart readers. That was a trick - on this show, it was never even an option. No, our genius sticks it straight into his veins.

Then, after an initial high of superpowers, he’s surprised – shocked, even! – to find bits of skin peeling off him. Well, yeah, MOHINDER.

With very few exceptions, every character on the show exhibits highly variable levels of intelligence. This is not rare on TV, unfortunately. Dramatic tension is usually a byproduct of people not asking obvious questions at opportune times (see: "Lost," season 2).

But…come on. This isn’t “Why didn’t Peter use his telepathy to see if a guy’s telling the truth?” That’s the nitpicking you just have to ignore with a show like this.

This is “What self-respecting scientist would inject himself with a chemical even he admitted needed more testing?” It’s a character ignoring basic human reasoning skills for the sake of a character arc.

The well-founded complaint of season 2 was that things moved too slowly, that old characters treaded water while new unconnected characters were introduced haphazardly (see: complaints about “Lost: Season 2”). But in its haste to course-correct, “Heroes” has started season 3 by overcompensating and having its characters Doing Stuff, no matter how poorly-conceived.

I still have high hopes for the season, because, well, I’m an optimist at heart (ha ha). Also it’s got Kristen Bell guest-starring. And lest we forget, things didn’t look so rosy on “Lost” at the outset of season 3, either.

But then, “Lost” didn’t seem to be tying all of its stories into the fact that half the characters were actually related (Sylar's a Petrelli? C'mon, what does that add?) and the grim fate of the world needed to be averted yet a third time (thanks to yet a third nightmarish vision of the future).

There are stories to be told here. Invincible Claire starting to question her own humanity if she can’t feel pain. Whatever arc Noah Bennet is going to go through. The existential dilemma represented by the fact that the mere presence of all these superpowered folk means the world is on the brink of destruction no matter what they do. These all point to a show with a bit of cleverness.

But somehow I’m lacking confidence. It might be because the guy who should have a faint clue as to what’s going on is absolutely confounded why he’s sloughing off skin after sticking Plague-Girl’s blood inside him.

Be Smarter, TV!: Part One

TV shows should be better than they are.

Yes I know that’s a stupid statement to make, but just go with me here.

I first noticed this problem during a recent episode of “Burn Notice” where the lead character, ex-spy Michael Westen, is confronted by another burned spook. As Michael realizes what a desperate and amoral maniac the guy’s become, we get a “There but for the grace of god” kind of story, the end.

Except what that episode really did was point out the “A-Team” problem the show has.

The “A-Team” problem: Here’s a bunch of highly trained special forces guys with nothing to lose, hiring themselves out as mercenaries to people in need. And they have guns and explosives and everything. But when the time comes to run the bad guys out of town, what do they do?

The shoot their M-16s at the bad guys’ feet. Or flip the bad guys’ car over, making sure they can crawl out shaken and deterred, but not exactly damaged.

If the show made any logical sense, the A-Team would’ve killed at least a couple of guys here and there to show they meant business, right?

Same problem with the Michael Westen character. It’s well implied he’s been doing black-ops stuff around the world for years, and yet when confronted with a local drug runner or what have you, he always opts for elaborate cover identities and scams to run the bad guys out of town. Which is weird, because he must know that, more often than not, a little bit of creative violence would do the same job for half the time and money.

I’m not saying the guy maims or tortures every half-tard criminal he’s hired to scare off – because that show wouldn’t be terribly enjoyable – but he doesn’t even seem to realize it’s an option.

It’s moments like this I really wish the show weren’t on USA. Fox, FX, even TNT, there’d be a possibility of real emotional concern: Michael realizing those horrible tools are at his disposal and fighting to keep from using them, because he's trying something new.

But USA’s got "Monk" and "Psych." Characters Welcome, and all that. It won’t ever be anything but light, escapist fare.

But the lead character’s a talented ex-espionage agent. So I’m saying there should be a few more dark nights of the soul for him, where he realizes he’s not utilizing his simplest, most dangerous skills.

It would make “Burn Notice” a better show.

(Tomorrow, the reason for a two-parter: The "Heroes" Season 3 premiere.)

RE: The Emmys

1) Yaaaay, "30 Rock"! Yaaaaay!

2) Is there anything cooler than The Smothers Brothers? Unfortunately, considering how politically minded and ahead-of-his-time Tommy Smothers is, I feel bad that his chief influence on me was wanting to learn yo-yo tricks when I was a kid. So much so that to this day, I find those motorized yo-yos that automatically "walk the dog" to be absolutely abhorrent.

2A) Has Steve Martin been botoxed or something? He looked a little...waxy. I suppose all older stars have their HD issues.

3) I'd be willing to bet that if the "House" producers had submitted the episode where House is holding an Emmy and pretending to give an acceptance speech, rather than the dramatically awesome season finale, Hugh Laurie would have actually won. This is how out of it the actual Emmy judges are, I think. Still, Bryan Cranston's cool. Eh, at least it wasn't Spader again.

4) Betty White: Always a pleasure.

5) Once again: "30 Rock"! Yaaaaaay! And Tina Fey actually managed to throw in "Watch the premiere October 31st" before the music cut her off.

Sons of Liver Failure

I wanted to give FX's new "Sons of Anarchy" a shot, because, hey! Ron Perlman! Katy Sagal! Biker shenanagans! Why not?



Keeping in mind that I have yet to watch a single FX program - other than "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," of course - that I've stuck with for more than six episodes. It's not that they're bad shows, really. It's just I feel like they're trying too hard to be edgy, so I'm always put off.



We know you're bad-ass, FX. You're like your danger-loving parent company Fox. Except you're so tough you don't even need that pussy-ass "O." We get it.



Short version: it was...eh. Sagal and Perlman are cool, but you can hear the creator pitching it as "'Sopranos' meets the Hells Angels meets muthafuckin' HAMLET, DUDE!"

But rather than blather on, I instead invite you to play the "Sons of Anarchy Drinking Game."



1) Invite friends over and a bottle of your favorite poison.

2) Turn on the "Sons of Anarchy" pilot. (Comcast subscribers: It's onDemand! In Hi-Def! (Where available!) )

3) Drink every time you see the words "Sons of Anarchy" or hear a character reference the biker club's acronym SAMCRO.

4) Whoever's liver doesn't fail wins.

4a) Alternatively, depending on how BAD-ASS you are, whoever's liver doesn't fail is some kind of nancy who can't handle liver failure like a BAD-ASS!

Death to Vinnie Chase!

Spinning around in a reality just to the left of ours is an alternate Earth. And on that alternate Earth, there’s an alternate HBO, airing a Bizarro-version of “Entourage.”

The Bizarro-“Entourage” would take its plot points from the fact that its main character, Vincent Chase, is some kind of zen asshole, casually indulging in expensive vacations and sex with hot morons because despite his working class roots, he’s become a gigantic Hollywood cliché. And the friends he brought out to Hollywood with him, to keep him “real,” have the unenviable task of explaining to him just how much he’s pissing his career and (supposed) talent away every time he indulges his whims by performing in shitty vanity projects and then acting like the negative consequences are someone else’s problem.

It would be an interesting show. An inside look at how easy it is for a once up-and-coming star to end up headlining direct-to-DVD movies and becoming the butt of industry jokes.

Unfortunately, we don’t live on that alternate Earth. We live with this reality’s HBO, which features a version of “Entourage” wherein Vinnie Chase’s massive fuckups result in him having no problem lounging on a Mexican beach and fucking morons every day while his friends placate his ego and find him another high-paying job he balks at. Which is just fine, because the plots don’t ever delve into just how badly he’s fucked up. Oh, they’ll give lip service to it, but it never amounts to any real lasting change in the characters or plots. Why bother with that? There are a lot of really nice boobs to show instead.

Every time the series threatens to veer into interesting territory (such as last season’s finale, where a Harvey Weinstein analogue buys Chase’s awful film for one dollar), it backs off because…well, I really have no good explanation, other than “Nice breasts need to be filmed.”

I continue to watch “Entourage,” mostly because, well, what the hell else is there to do on a Sunday night at 10 PM? But I watch it because A) I like the Ari/Lloyd banter, and B) because I like to think of Eric’s evolution as the main thematic thrust, even though the show’s ongoing focus on just How Cool It Is To Be Vinnie Chase continually proves me wrong.

In other words, I am a Spite-Viewer. Every time I watch “Entourage,” what I’m actually thinking is, “I hope it all ends with Vinnie Chase starring with fucking Carrot-Top and wondering what the hell just happened.”

Also, he starts losing his hair.

(I'm a very spiteful viewer.)

Your Awful Friend, "Saturday Night Live"

"Saturday Night Live" manages to sucker me in at least once every year.

It's nobody's fault but mine. I like to check in, see how it's doing. Like hanging out with an old friend you haven't seen in a while. An old friend whose annoying qualities far outway any good reason to maintain a friendship with them. But you put in your time, hoping like hell maybe this go-around you won't kinda want to punch them.

And so you usually end up with about 10 minutes out of a 90-minute hanging-out session that you can qualify as "Not so bad."

In the interim, you spend the rest of the night:

- Marveling, as Michael Phelps, like all athlete-hosts before him, tries his damnedest to read cue cards properly, while at the same time adding inflection. Bless his heart, he managed to do almost one of those things at any given moment (to his credit, he did it while cracking up less than Jimmy Fallon).

- Staring confusedly, as Andy Samburg performs yet another vaguely science-fictiony, humor-free digital short. Begging the question: is he such a grating presence that Lorne Michaels is using this "digital short" scam just to keep him out of the studio during regular business hours?

- Wondering, just what so many funny actors (Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, et al.), who have all been genuinely amusing elsewhere (30 Rock, Apatowe comedies, etc.), are doing on a show that seems to be crushing their sense of funny.

- Scratching your head at the sad reality that one skit actually cribbed its concept from the often-escruciating Aaron Sorkin dramedy "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip."

Not the best old friend to spend a Saturday night with, is what I'm saying.

But we here at the ISTV Global Stronghold have special futurey technology called "linking" (which Andy Samburg CAN NOT HAVE) that allows you to speed through that awful night with your awful old friend, in order to get to those gloriously not-painful 10 minutes.



(We would have special technology called "imbedding," except Blogger's being a bit finicky tonight. Expect a move to Wordpress very, very soon.)


First, Amy Poehler and special guest Tina Fey open the show with the inevitable Sarah Palin/Hilary Clinton bit:

Then, an ad-spoof premise I've often wondered about: In the T-Mobile "Fav-5" commercial where the dad tells his daughter she "shouldn't have such hot friends," what does that conversation turn into?

There. You're welcome. Now you don't have to hang out with this "friend" of yours again. At least until some actor or band you REALLY like shows up. Or Christopher Walken.

And then the cycle of pain will begin anew.

Vampires: Eternal Poseurs of the Night

I’m not a “vampire guy.” Find a new angle on it, and I might be interested, but it’s not an innate selling point. On the negative end of the spectrum, Anne Rice had made the subject silly in its pompous romanticism. On the positive end, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”/”Angel” had pretty much locked in what a TV show with bloodsuckers should be for me.

So I was curious what HBO’s new vampires-in-the-south show “True Blood” would try to do, to make the “monsters are people too” subject interesting.

This is an easier task than trying to make the Deep South interesting. Usually it comes off as mocking, or…no, it always feels like there’s some outdated idea of The South that creators are trying to winkingly play into or subvert.

By the end of the first episode, I found myself enjoying the southern aspect while still being frosty on the vampire side.

“True Blood” starts pretty shakily, pulling the “That goth guy isn’t a monster; the everyday-lookin’ fella behind you is!” trope that’s already pretty old-hat. Then, after a brief bit of exposition/Bill Maher product placement about The State of Vampirism, there’s the introduction to the rural Louisiana town. It’s the standard assortment of twangy, folksy southern types – the slutty townies, the wary bartender who just wants to keep things quiet, the sassy black gal, the waitress who wishes she’d gotten outta this dump.

But over the course of the hour, the show did a good enough job of making a few of them feel like actual characters, rather than an assortment of voice-coached accents. In particular, Anna Paquin, essentially playing a sunnier version of her Rogue character from the X-Men films. The fact that our viewpoint character is open-minded, likeable, and, well, adorable, helps us accept the rest of her people.

When an overarching murder plot was introduced midway through the episode, I thought, “I could actually watch a ‘murder in a small southern town’ kind of show like this.”

Which makes the supernatural aspect feel that much more unneeded and intrusive.

So no, I’m not at all sold on the vampire element yet. Vampire-as-vampire has been given up for the most part in pop culture, in favor of vampire-as-metaphor. In terms of the first episode at least, now that readily available synthetic blood has allowed vampires to publicly join society, the metaphor is homosexuality. Which lets the southerner-cliches react to a bloodsucker in town a lot like we’d assume they’d react to having their first Resident Gay. It feels a bit forced.

(FYI: They do, actually, have a Resident Gay, a mildly annoying motormouthed fry-cook.)

Not helping is the fact that the new vampire in town – despite the pedestrian name “Bill” – behaves with all the preening, posing, and glowering mannerisms that make Anne Rice’s material seem so ridiculous. REALLY not helping is that the actor playing him looks like Paul Rudd doing an amusing impression of “menacing.”

The show’s definitely worth watching a few more episodes – I’ve yet to watch an HBO show that didn’t need a few episodes to really make its intentions known – but so far, it’s Anna Paquin’s supreme lovable-ness that’s going to bring me back for the next episode.

Fall TV: It is, as they say, "Time to Face the Hole"

The 10.5 most amazing things about Fox's “Hole in the Wall”:

10) Brooke Burns says everything in the same weirdly halting yet totally excited cadence. “You’re the team captain, right!” and “Introduce me to your team!” sound like the exact same sentence. It’s really bizarre.
9) The two teams in the first episode were made of “Six-Packs” – guys on the shortish side who are “personal trainers,” but from their descriptions sound more like unemployed bodybuilders – and “Beer-Bellies” – radio employees who likely think “The Jerky Boys” was the apex of comedy. In other words, there are no winners here. Only losers.
8) There are actually lifeguards on duty when the contestants fall into the 5-feet-deep pool. At least, I think they’re lifeguards, because they’re wearing Baywatch-style swimsuits and holding those pontoon thingies. Once again: for the 5-feet-deep pool. That a camera man is standing in.
7) Before every…ah, let’s just be charitable and call it “event”…there is an explanation – complete with cute visual aids – of what the next challenge will be. “This time, TWO contestants need to jump through the holes.” In case the whole concept was just too confusing for the average viewer.
6) After every commercial break, there is a recap of the results of the previous jump through the hole. Again, just in case viewers were having trouble keeping up.
5) In addition to Brooke Burns on the sidelines, there’s a host up in a balcony, whose best moment came when he referred to one of the very white, American, Californian bodybuilders as “an Iraqi war veteran.”
4) The grand prize is $100,000. For jumping through a cutout in a Styrofoam wall. Just let that sink in.
3) The show’s attempted catchphrase is, “It’s time to face the hole.”
2) This show is 22 minutes long, when by all rights, it’s hard to make a case for it being longer than 2 minutes.
1.5) Watching this show, you are actually likely to utter the words, "Y'know, I think I'd probably be pretty good at this."

And the #1 most interesting thing about “Hole in the Wall”…

1) There will actually be more than one episode of a show called “Hole in the Wall,” wherein obnoxious people attempt to jump through a cutout in a Styrofoam wall.

Will I be watching this show again? …Possibly. I’ll definitely watch it after it follows the “Fringe” pilot. But if I can’t be bothered to plop myself down on the couch Thursday nights at 8 to watch “My Name is Earl” – a show I actually kinda like – it’s not too likely I’ll make time for this one. No matter how many oddly-shaped contestants they promise to shove through those holes.

Then again, “It’s time to face the hole” is a phrase I’d really like to see used in regular conversation.

Fall On My Face (Part 1: Preview Night)

Dear god, the new fall season. What the hell, man. I mean, really. What The Hell?!

"Knight Rider"? "90210"? A shitload of "Gossip Girl" knockoffs (which itself is a "The OC" knockoff)? Come on. You're wrecking all of our important TV/world-domination equipment here at the I Speak TV Global Stronghold.

If you look at last year, there was a lot that was interesting - worth checking out, at least, even if it wasn't actually any good.

Last year, I checked out "Bionic Woman," "Chuck," "Life," "Reaper," "Pushing Daisies," and "Journeyman." Lot of sci-fi/genre choices. Only "Pushing Daisies" was really worth anyone's time, although "Chuck" and "Reaper" were both in their own ways enjoyable light-weight fare.

This year, the new series schedule's pretty bare. So here's what I'll be focusing on in the coming weeks.

APPOINTMENT VIEWING:
- Fox's "Fringe" earns a few weeks to see what it'll become. (Poke around the site and you'll find my review of the pilot.)

- Its thematic competition is "The 11th Hour," based on a solid BBC series. Dark City's Rufus Sewell takes over Patrick Stewart's fringe science advisor role, which is a point for the show. Unfortunately, it's on CBS, which has a certain shallowness to all its pilots, so that's a point against.

- "True Blood" has a premise I already find sort of grating - vampires living in the open among southerners. But it's HBO, so there's no harm in watching at least a couple of episodes, assuming it's not another show about the perils of being a psychiatrist.


TRAINWRECK VIEWING:
- "Life on Mars" was another very good BBC series, so I'm interested to see what ABC does with it. Other than totally retooling the cast, setting, and creative team. Which is always a great sign.

- I want to see if Christian Slater is as miscast in "My Own Worst Enemy" (NBC), a Jeckyll & Hyde/"Alias" mash-up, as I assume he'll be, so yeah, I'll watch an episode or two here.

- "Crusoe" (NBC) - exactly what you think it is - may be the dumbest idea for a series since the WB's ill-fated "Tarzan" series a while back.


SICK, CARNY SENSE OF HUMOR VIEWING:
- "Hole in the Wall" (Fox)...Well, c'mon. Based on the Japanese gameshow (and that should sell you right there) of people trying to fit themselves into shapes cut out of styrofoam. Proving that Fox doesn't need to ask people embarrassing questions about themselves to show viewers a good time. Because Fox does, in fact, think viewers are that stupid.

ON THE HORIZON:
In a weird reversal (likely due to the writers strike, which forced networks to greenlight a lot of fall shows without actually looking at them), midseason is the time to get interested in TV, with NBC's modern David & Goliath retelling "Kings," Joss Whedon's new Fox show "Dollhouse," and Rob Thomas's redux of his 1999 ABC series "Cupid" showing up.


Watching TV: Always a weird experience. Always worth the wasted time. Place your faith in the ISTV Global Stronghold. We won't steer you wrong. And if we do?



Well, we've finally built our deathray, so you won't feel a thing.

ISTV Classic: "Heroes, Season 2"

Since "Heroes: Season 2" has been released on DVD this week, I thought I'd use the opportunity to offer again a post written a few months before this site went active. So this one is for all you new "Heroes" fans just getting into the show via DVD and may not know what you're in for; and all you old "Heroes" fans who, thanks to the blissful haze of passing time, may have forgotten what a fricking slog Season 2 became, and to go into season 3 with eyes wide open:


"I Have Some Questions, 'Heroes' Producers"

Now that I've finished re-watching the first season of "Heroes," and NBC will be airing the finale of "Volume II" tonight, I thought it might be a good idea to pose 10 questions to the producers that, 1.5 seasons in, haven't really been answered. Initially this list numbered in the high 20's, but I then realized asking "Where did Claude go?" is really just asking, "Why couldn't you and Christopher Eccleston's agent come to an agreement?" so I've decided to choose my battles.

1) Didn't Mrs. Bennet have some pretty scary-looking brain damage thanks to the Hatian? Because she looks fine now.

2) Why in the hell would a multinational organization like The Company have a big office in Odessa, TX? For that matter, why don't they have a proper name?

3) So does Kensei's sword have powers allowing Hiro to focus his, or was that just an annoying bullshit plot device to let Hiro waste half the first season? Because he just went to Japan, met Kensei, and came back, and that never really came up.

4) Why would Isaac Mendez do a series of paintings depicting events that directly contradict his own previously-painted prophecies?

5) Eden, Candice, and now Elle...exactly how many sociopathic pixie girls does The Company have in its employ? Are they particularly reliable? Because two of them are dead now.

6) So remember how you told us Linderman had manipulated every aspect of Nikki and DL's lives to get them to produce a kid with Micah's computer-communicating abilities? A question in two parts, part A) being, Is that like how a Frankenstein and a Vampire had a Werewolf on "The Munsters"? Or is it part B), because you noticed, like I did, that it turns out the characters had virtually no connection to the overarching plot otherwise?

7) Am I to take it that at the end of the season 1 finale, everyone was so transfixed by the pretty explosion in the night sky that NOBODY noticed a grievously-wounded Sylar slowly dragging himself towards a manhole?

8) So if Linderman was in charge of The Company, wouldn't he have a problem with his mentor being imprisoned in one of their facilities for like 30 years? Or did he just not notice? And if he just didn't notice, I have a follow-up: just how stupid is was Linderman, anyway?

9) Exactly who in the FUCK gave custody of Molly to Matt Parkman and Mohinder Suresh? Y'know, the Parkman that got shot point blank multiple times in the chest and would have been recouperating for months and in no condition to care for a child? This would be the same Parkman that had recently been fired from the LAPD for being a total flake, and oh yeah, just left his wife and unborn child. Did they think that these negatives would be offset by Mohinder, who is NOT A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES, frequently travels giving lectures as part of his "job," and has known both Molly and Parkman for a grand total of like two hours? Seriously. I would like to talk to agency that thought these would be suitable guardians. Is this agency the Department of JESUS FUCK, REALLY?! (The DoJFR?)

10) Okay, let me see if I've got the timeline down. For three months, Nathan Petrelli sat burnt to a crisp in a hospital bed. Once healed, he managed, in under a month, to 1. Get divorced and lose custody of his kids, 2. Become a full-on drunk, and 3. Grow a big fuck-off superbeard in which woodland creatures could nest? I guess my question here is, are we to take from this that Nathan is SO VIRILE, that he hits rock-bottom with more efficiency and accuracy than most men can succeed?




I suppose I have one more follow-up question: Since you guys are gonna have a little time between finishing volume 2 and starting up volume 3, do you think you could spend an extra couple days hashing out story points that make between a dash and a lick of sense? Or perhaps characters that do not routinely make the dumbest choice available to them?


When the scale of smartest to dumbest ranges from Peter Petrelli (who despite having mind-reading powers, does not bother reading the mind of the man everyone keeps telling him wants to destroy the world) to Maya (who speaks fluent English, but yet is completely unable to interpret Sylar's vocal inflections or body language, which say nothing but "Eeeviiiilllllmwahahahahaah!"), you've got some issues to iron out.

R.I.P., Henchman #24

The "Venture Bros." season finale aired last night, and by the end of it, I actually shouted, "Holy Crap! They killed Henchman 24!"

My girlfriend looked up at me and said, "Wow, you're really upset, aren't you?"

"No! No," I answered. "It's just...I didn't expect them to do that. It was a funny gag."

This was a lie. I was, in fact, a little upset.

"Venture Bros." is the last of Cartoon Network's old-school "Adult Swim" shows. It came in at the tail end of the first batch that mocked old Hanna-Barbara shows - "Sealab 2021," "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law," etc. - and just before the newer batch like "Tim and Eric Awesome Show" and "Squidbillies," - shows you'd have to be really, really stoned to find funny.

"Venture Bros." is the apex of the old-school because as it's gone on, its nerd jokes have become more obvious and esoteric all at once. By which I mean, they'll throw a "G.I. Joe" parody out there, and that might be funny for what it is. A newbie might laugh at it.

But by this third season, the joke itself is really more of a capper to a series of other jokes from earlier seasons. And so the newbies might be wondering why the big fans are laughing so much harder.

It's a bizarre turn of events, when a show that started off as a riff on the quick-punchline idea, "What would Johnny Quest be like if we followed him into his middle-aged-failure years?" has actually developed a huge supporting cast, a plethora of important thematic devices, an assload of running gags, and an alarming detailed sense of continuity. "Venture Bros." has officially become the "Lost" of Adult Swim.

As a result of the audience's investment in the characters and mythology, "Venture Bros." can do something a show like "Metalocolypse" can't - it can pull the rug from under the audience and provoke a genuine emotional reaction.

Case in point, the Henchmen. Half-assed supervillain The Monarch has had a giant band of nameless henchmen throughout the series, but two of them - portly, squeaky-voiced #21 and skinny, Ray-Ramano-sounding #24, both audience-surrogates - have managed to survive onslaught after onslaught of absurd violence, though what The Monarch refers to as "that rare blend of expendable and invulnerable."

Until last night, when #24 was accidentally blown up. REALLY blown up - #21 actually caught his flaming head.

That the season ended with Brock quitting his bodyguard job didn't really matter. FUCKING #24 died!

That this is both hilarious and upsetting is why "Venture Bros." is the best Adult Swim series. And maybe the only Adult Swim show where you'd hear someone say, "...Actually, you should just start with the first season. Everything will make more sense after that."

Rest in Peace, Henchman #24.

(Oh, also? Last season, they revealed that the head of the shadowy villainous organization was, well, David Bowie. So...you really should put "Venture Bros." in your Netflix queue, just for that, right?)