Week Ending Oct 15, 2005

Mid-October, 2004. Team America: World Police was charging into theaters. Bill O’Reilly was being sued for sexual harassment. Israeli forces continue to kill Palestinian civilians, including an 11 year old girl. Rumors were swirling about Jen Aniston, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie. The Red Sox were losing to the Yankees in the American League Championship series. Let’s see what was on tv!

Saturday, October 9

9:00 Frankenfish on the Sci-Fi Channel

In 2002 some gnarly looking snakehead fish were discovered in a pond in suburban Maryland. A minor media frenzy followed. Once that was finished, it was time for the cheap creature features. There were three: Snakehead Terror, Swarm of the Snakehead, and Frankenfish.

And as far as schlocky creature features go, Frankenfish is pretty good. Director Marc A.Z. Dippe directed Spawn, as well as the DCOM classic Halloweentown High, which premiered the day before Frankenfish. But before that, he was a groundbreaking CGI animator. He worked on The Abyss. He worked on Jurassic Park. He helped create the T-1000. He puts that expertise to good use here, using a combination of CGI and animatronics to create some really fun gore effect. The rest of the direction is good too, the movie makes excellent use of its Southern Bayou setting. The performances are pretty good across the board. And it’s diverse in a matter-of-fact way. The ensemble, led by Troy Kittles (True Detective), is mostly Black and also includes Chinese-American supermodel China Chow. And the female lead is even queer!

11:30 Saturday Night Live on NBC

Let’s ring in Sunday with SNL. Queen Latifah is both host and musical guest this week. She’s a very good host, and her impression of Gwen Ifill in the VP debate is so good they brought her back in 2008. But the highlight of the episode is her fake commercial. It’s only a minute long, just watch it.

Other highlights of the episode include a hilarious commercial for pubes shampoo that manages to spoof homoerotic male rituals without making any gay jokes, Seth Meyer’s excellent John Kerry impression, and Amy and Tina’s impression of a get out the vote ad targeted at single woman. (Jen Aniston and Helen Hunt are here to tell you “don’t let the ballot box be as empty as your womb.”)

There’s also an installment of “X-Presidents,” a very bizarre series of animated shorts created by Adam McKay, which in which ex-Presidents star in their very own cartoon. This time, they put minorities in prison camps so they can’t vote, and then they’re stopped by even older presidents rising from the grave. It’s weird.

In the VP debate sketch, Cheney is asked about the connection between 9-11 and Iraq and he references Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This reminds me that the Bush Administration made this B-list terrorist seem like a real threat so they could justify the Iraq war, and that was basically the first domino to fall in the creation of ISIS. This is true. It was in a Frontline episode.

Sunday, October 10

8:00 Cold Case on CBS

Among CBS’ endless parade of 2000s crime procedurals, Cold Case was always regarded as the one for ladies. It was the only one with a female lead, the only one with a female showrunner. But after watching an episode, I have discovered a third reason. Cold Case is a stealth period drama.

As the title suggests, our heroine solves cold cases, and many of these are very cold cases. This week’s case comes from the 1940s. Girls are working in a factory during WWII when one of them turns up dead. The episode features interviews with the women in the present timeline and flashbacks to their Rosie the Riveter days.

I like period dramas, but the period drama here is too obvious by half. There’s a Rosie the Riveter poster on the wall in their factory. One man asks if the victim wants to go see “Case-a-blank-a.” There’s a Holocaust sub-plot thrown in as a red herring. The show tries to make a feminist point at the end, when it’s revealed that the victim was accidentally killed by her resentful husband, who wanted her to go back to being a housewife. But that only goes so far. throughout Jenna Fisher looms as the sad, jealous, old maid secretary of the factory director (she’s basically playing a less complex, 1940s version of Pam). At the end, all of the old timers reunite and play cards (one of them is played by a Lois Smith, and she’s totally wasted in a nothing part). But future Jenna Fisher (Shirley Knight, also wasted) looks sadly through the window while holding her dog. At least it isn’t a cat.

9:00 Desperate Housewives on ABC

Record both The Wire and Jack and Bobby.

I have a favorite Desperate Housewife, and it is Bree. I love Bree. I also hate her husband Rex. This episode reminds me why.

Bree turns their appointment with a divorce attorney into an appointment with a marriage counselor. They arrive, and Rex has all his complaints about Bree ready to go: she’s distant, she’s inauthentic, she’s a robot. She doesn’t listen to him. She’s just a perfect housewife, not a real person. He’s very articulate, and the counselor is sympathetic. Bree is just engaging in small talk, she’s not trying. Marriage counseling scenes have taught us that this makes her the problem. But as Rex goes on yet another rant about how Bree has no emotions hidden under her perfect Martha Stewart facade, we enter Bree’s point of view and see that she has a lot of emotions. They’re just about the loose hanging button on the counselor’s coat.

Later, she returns to the counselor and fixes his coat. She goes on a rant about Freud and how it’s bullshit he blamed mothers for all of men’s problems, when Freud’s mother cleaned his room, cooked his food, and washed his dishes. The therapist understands, she feels unappreciated, and she does have emotions. She communicates, through her work, and her housework. Her husband just doesn’t listen. It’s easier to pigeonhole her and complain. She wins him to her side and he makes Rex look like an idiot. It’s very satisfying.

10:00 Boston Legal on ABC

In this episode of Boston Legal, Elizabeth Mitchell plays James Spader’s ex-girlfriend. She tried to kill him. She was committed to a psych ward. Now he’s her attorney, trying to free her and prove she’s not crazy! But what if she is crazy after all? If you told me this movie came out in the early ’90s, I would believe you. Not only that, I would be checking to see if I could watch it on Tubi.

Of course, James Spader gets his ex-girlfriend out of the psych ward, and at the end of the episode she reveals that she will be staying in Boston, arguing against him in court, flirting with him, and making Lake Bell jealous. And she might still be crazy. David E. Kelly has managed to nestle a classic James Spader erotic thriller inside his James Spader legal drama. Bravo. (Meanwhile, in a different storyline, James Spader also admits that he and his girlfriend Lake Bell are “non-exclusive when it comes to feet.” This aired on network television!).

Of course, none of this would work if you didn’t have an actress who could pull it off. But Mitchell is perfect. Elizabeth Mitchell is an actress who always keeps you guessing, her characters are always both steely and fragile. These qualities were used to great effect in her most famous role on Lost, but they also make her a perfect erotic thriller heroine. Now I’m mad she didn’t get to star opposite James Spader or some other slimeball in a real movie.

Tivo Status

4 episodes of Everwood, 3 episodes of The Wire, 2 episodes of Joan of Arcadia, one episode of Jack and Bobby, plus a two-hour Mystery! episode. I record the 3 am repeat of the second part of that Mystery! miniseries (It looks like it involves murderous clergy!) so that’s two more hours. The total is 14 hours, with 14 hours of space left on the imaginary TiVo.

What Else Was On

• On NBC, Neil Patrick Harris played a serial killer on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, continuing his efforts to remind general audiences that he was Not Doogie Howser.
• This week’s CBS Sunday Movie was While I Was Gone, a second-chance romance starring Kirstie Alley.
• On Bravo, everyone was horrified when JLo dropped by Inside the Actors Studio. But she deserved to be there! Hold your snark!
• Also on Bravo, Christopher Meloni, Matthew Perry, Stephen Roo,; Sarah Silverman, and Michael Vartan all faced off in the Celebrity Poker Showdown.
• Earlier in the week Hallmark debuted a new Frankenstein miniseries. Tonight, USA debuted its own less faithful take on the famous story, a failed tv pilot dressed up as a tv movie. It starred Parker Posey and Vincent Perez!

Monday, October 11

8:00 7th Heaven on the WB

With the presidential election less than a month away, you start to see election episodes. In 2004, the WB’s 7th Heaven was first out of the gate with a truly bizarre entry in this sub-genre. The premise of this episode is that young people don’t like hearing about politics. You can tell because anytime an adult starts trying to talk politics with one of our pastor hero’s seven kids or their various love interests, the dialogue will be overlaid with “blah blah blah blahs.” I’m not joking! Things heat up after a big political discussion in the local schoolyard, in which the child of an American soldier deployed to Iraq, two different Iraqi kids (one pro-war and one anti-war), a Native American kid, and a second-generation Italian American kid all burst into a spontaneous debate about the Iraq war. Opinions include “What about Sudan” and “My family would still be living under Mussolini if America hadn’t gone to war.” It’s nuts. This makes one of the younger kids on the show feel uneducated and prompts a lot of awkward and heavy-handed discussion about who in the family is registered to vote who voted in the last election and who plans to vote in this one. No presidential candidates or political parties are named but it’s easy to tell who the show supports. The show also can’t conceive of any political action besides voting, and it treats even that as a huge lift.

I have a high tolerance for problematic media, especially when it’s as fascinating strange, and influential as 7th Heaven. This episode is a real time capsule of a certain type of pseudo-apolitical religious conservatism, and it is not without camp value. But seeing the wise dad lecture everyone about what’s right and wrong all while knowing that in real life the actor sexually abused multiple underage girls is a bridge too far even for me. I don’t think I’ll watch the show again.

9:00 Everybody Loves Raymond on CBS

Record Girlfriends on UPN.

Ask any TV snob about Everybody Loves Raymond and chances are you’ll hear some variation of “she’s hot, he’s a slobby schlub, it’s such a cliche!” This episode steers straight into that skid and finds something real.

The episode opens small: Raymond’s wife Debra complains that he has a stain on his shirt. He can’t look like that at the PTA meeting tomorrow! Raymond tries to level the playing field: last time he heard the PTA ladies say Debra’s dress was “trampy.” Later, he confesses to his brother: the PTA ladies never said anything. He made it all up.

After a delightful scene in which Raymond tries to trash-talk the PTA ladies with Debra, we cut to the PTA meeting. Raymond of course gets a wad of cocktail sauce on his nice new shirt. And then Debra descends the stairs, leather miniskirt and all. Everyone is shocked, the parents arrive, there is chaos and the truth comes out. Eventually, everyone leaves and Ray and Debra are left alone. A deeper truth comes out. Ray doesn’t like the way Debra dresses because he’s insecure. According to him, everywhere they go they wonder why this gorgeous woman is with that “nose with legs.” And he worries that she’s looking for something better. Debra, for her part, feels insecure too. She hates that Ray never tells her she’s pretty, and just assumes she already knows. She hates that he gets to grow “old and distinguished” while she waits to drop off a cliff. We get to the heart of the matter, to the psychology of the hot wife and the schlubby husband. And they don’t resolve the tension inherent in that dynamic. They just go upstairs and have sex. This is a good show.

9:30 Girlfriends (recorded)

I liked the first two episodes of Girlfriends I watched. But this one is a little hoary. There are tiresome gags about pregnant Toni’s narcolepsy and short-term memory loss. Lynn becomes a robot street performer, and you have to give her money to make her talk. This is funny the first three times it happens. Not the next dozen. But the show still sparkles when all the titular girlfriends are in the same room, riffing off of each other. And the clothes and lifestyle porn are still top-notch.

Later Jack and Bobby (recorded)

Seriously, who was calling in favors on these talking heads from the future? I was impressed by the caliber of the actors they hired for the segments from a future documentary about Bobby (Paul Sorvino! David Paymer! Tess Sharpe!). But in this episode the talking head from the future is a Washington Post reporter played by Carrie Fisher. She opens the episode, by musing that America was doing well in the 2040s when Bobby got elected but we’d grown “complacent.” To think that was never how we imagined our future. Her storyline is that she stumbles across future first lady’s medical file and discovers she carries the gene for “mental illness.” That’s all the detail we get, and it reflects the sloppiness of this storyline. In the current timeline, the first lady is a love interest for Bobby’s older brother Jack. Except they don’t want them to get together yet so they’ve sloppily paired Jack up with his ex-girlfriend. In this episode Courtney is very angsty, she tearfully confesses that her mother died by suicide, and she and Jack kiss. But after all that she’s still the weakest character on the show.

Late Night

Normally I don’t watch Letterman, but tonight I do. (Translation: it’s hard to find footage from this era anywhere, but someone uploaded the highlights from tonight’s show to youtube!)

He of course starts his monologue by talking about the election. He muses that George Bush is “starting to feel the pressure, because today he said he would be willing to stay on until 2009 and then turn over things to Conan O’Brien.” Delightful to see Dave take a shot at his old frenemy.

His first guest Laura Linney. She’s wearing a truly terrible dress that has what looks like illusion mesh in the neckline. But she has some really thoughtful things to say about making sitcoms when asked about her recent work on the final season of Frasier. Next is Dave’s old friend and frequent guest Richard Lewis, who died earlier this year. Lewis had recently met the woman who would become his wife, and you can tell he’s very happy and in love. It’s very sweet coming from a man who wrung so much humor out of his own hardships. But his trademark self-deprecating humor is still there. A comic’s jokes about having sex with his much younger girlfriend usually inspire dread. But when Richard Lewis does it, it’s hilarious and wonderful. Rest in peace.

What Else Was On

HBO premiered Diary of a Political Tourist, a documentary about the race for the 2004 Demoncratic nomination directed by Alexandra Pelosi (yes, Nancy’s daughter).

Tuesday, October 12

8:00 Manhunt on Bravo

Normally, I’d watch Gilmore Girls, but tonight Bravo is premiering Manhunt: The Search for America’s Most Gorgeous Male Model. So Rory and Lorelai will have to wait on the TiVo.

This show is most famous for two things. First, it introduced America to Matt Lanter, the future star of NBC’s Timeless and the voice of Anakin Skywalker. Second, it birthed an incredible meme. Let’s explore the story behind the meme.

The models have just gone skydiving in their underwear while “It’s Raining Men” plays (it was a “team-building exercise”). After they land they stand in a line and host/mentor Bruce Hulse goes up to all the models and asks them to give him an expression.

Hulse is the kind of host who makes you appreciate Tyra Banks, he’s really quite bad at this and the contestants give him the respect he deserves. Lanter showcases his charm and acting chops with a hilarious imitation and then cuts through all his boasting: “I’ve never seen you, man.” Another contestant, student Blake, opines that what he’ll learn from Bruce is “If I become successful, I don’t wanna be a cocky asshole.”

Hulse asks the models to give him different expressions like “seductive,” “druggy,” or “just won the lottery.” But the show strikes gold when Bruce tells contestant Kevin to give him “your dog just died” and Kevin responds…just see for yourself. Thus, the show lives on.

My other favorite part of the show is that they eliminate four contestants right off the bat before they have done anything at all. I must conclude they were cast so Bravo could parade more shirtless hotties around in the meet the models opening. The pandering to gay men is shameless throughout, and I love it.

Some choice quotes:

• “I’m gonna rock these straight guys out of their minds” – Ron, whose profession is “retail sales.”
• “Justin Timberlake and Usher Raymond are role models, in certain aspects. But I would say that my biggest role model is Jesus” – Seth, aspiring clothing designer and token virgin.
• “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna go down on some guy because of it” – Micah, personal trainer. This quote is taken out of context. But Bravo knew what they were doing!
• “You think you’re too cool for school. Well, I’ve got news for you Walter Cronkite…you’re not!” – Kevin (but not the one from the meme, there were two Kevins). Construction worker and self-proclaimed funny one.
• “I’m gonna bust the male model myth by showing the world that you’re allowed to be very decent, or good-looking, as well as very smart. In the head.” – Brian, waiter.
• “I think I’m gonna do well. I had a psychic come up to me at the gym.” – Rob, law student.
• “I’m not the kind of guy that wakes up and looks in the mirror and is like “oh, thees is my life, my looks.” – Matt Lanter, Atlanta Braves batboy and future voice of Anakin Skywalker.
• Other jobs include air filtration systems salesman, marketing student, steakhouse host, club promoter, astrophysics student, and fitness consultant.
• Whoever put this episode on YouTube also included the promo for Project Runway that Bravo ran during the broadcast. That show was about two months from its debut.

9:00 Veronica Mars on UPN

Duncan Kane is not a popular character among Veronica Mars fans. But his storyline in this episode is excellent, and it represents a major step forward for the show. It’s the first storyline that exists completely outside of Veronica’s point of view, and thus expands the world and adds some new shades to the show’s central mystery. The storyline also takes a lot of stylistic risks. The filmmaking is more experimental and more subjective, and it works. The storyline is filled with memorable images, from that giant dinner table to the pills dropping down the sink, to the transition between Veronica’s dream and Duncan’s date. It all gets you to empathize with a character who’s seemed unknowable up to this point, and who we’ve been inclined to dislike. It makes the show much richer. Duncan’s journey in this storyline, in which he makes an informed decision to start taking his antidepressants, was also very out-of-step with contemporary portrayals of mental illness (Garden State would premiere at Sundance the following year). But I think its portrayal of mental health has aged quite well.

The case of the week has honestly aged...okay, which is a relief. Veronica finds a kid’s missing dad, only to discover the kid's missing mom. As far as trans representation goes, it’s better than Nip/Tuck, but that bar is on the floor. The storyline is compassionate towards the mother. There’s a moment after Veronica and her client leave when we see the mom hug her partner, which shows us that she has a life outside the episode. But she’s still portrayed by Melissa Leo, not a trans actress, and her transness is still used as a gotcha twist.

10:00 Gilmore Girls on the WB

Record Laguna Beach and Law and Order: SVU

Hey, it’s another election day episode. Melissa McCarthy’s husband is running for selectman so there’s a big party where Lane and her band can play and Rory and Dean can have a fight. The election storyline is without any trenchant political insights and that’s probably for the best. Mr. Melissa McCarthy, whose name is Jackson, wins in a landslide. The only votes his opponent receives are because Lorelai feels bad for him and begs random passers-by to take pity on him. When he’s about to win, he gives a speech about how he likes his life and doesn’t want the responsibility, but that just convinces the crowd he’s the perfect politician after all. By the end of the episode, he’s helplessly listening to someone harangue him about the hedge height regulations.

But my favorite storyline by far belonged to Lane. She is crushing on her bandmate and fretting about what it means. She asks Rory to do a taste test of two Rilo Kiley songs: one pre-Blane and Jenny breakup and one post-breakup. There’s some excellent banter with the band about Jimi Hendrix and the Star-Spangled Banner with the band while Lane’s crush simmers in the background. Later, she stews while he parties with random girls before she decides to just tell him she likes him, knocking him out. I love her.

Later Law and Order: SVU (recorded)

I wasn’t expecting much real insight from Law and Order: SVU, but this episode delivers some real wisdom mixed in with all the usual sensationalism.

It probably helps that the show was tackling an issue that hit close to home: the Parents Television Council and other groups of its ilk. Voices bemoaning the constant barrage of sex and violence on television had grown quite loud by 2004, especially in the wake of the Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson “version of the PTC, led by guest star Dana Delaney. But the show has also attracted the interest of a shock jock played by Lewis Black, who makes frequent bad jokes about its star being raped (the show’s portrayal of the shock jock is pretty sharp. He’s happy to expound on the importance of free speech…until they threaten to take away his advertisers). Halfway through the episode, it is discovered that–gasp!–Dana Delaney’s son is the rapist, motivated by his misguided desire to impress Lewis Black.

The case devolves into a he-said-she-said affair until the detectives set up a confrontation between the starlet and her rapist. This is obviously in very poor taste, but it’s also the best scene in the episode. The victim is played by Maggie Grace, who somehow found time to fly to New York while filming the first season of Lost, and she delivers here. She argues that his mother and people like her just use a radio show, a TV show, or anything to avoid admitting they cannot control their children, or that they might be bad parents, or that their children are capable of violence or sexual violence or just having consensual sex (hey, one of these things isn’t like the others!). She gets a confession, but the episode is only halfway done. Dana Delaney shoots Lewis Black, and the trial becomes about whether she’s a distraught mother or a political zealot. In what I expect is a rare moment for this franchise, the attorney loses. Her boss Judith Light warns her that there’s always going to be someone on the jury who sympathizes with a mother who just wants to keep her kids safe from the corrupting influence of shock jocks, sex on tv, or violence on tv, or what have you. And she’s right. The forces of Law and Order (the TV show) and law and order (the criminal justice system) do not triumph over society’s conservatism and special interests. I expect that’s because in this case, the writers were dealing with an opponent they had experience with.

Even Later Laguna Beach on MTV

Laguna Beach stars a girl who’s a kind of a square and still compelling despite that. She competes with another girl who embodies all the superficial stereotypes of her era but is still compelling despite that. The prize is a beautiful boy with a wandering eye who might not be all that interesting and might not be worth it. So basically Laguna Beach is a Victorian novel? The Wire has Dickens comparisons thrown at it all the time. But those three characters I described are all staples in the novels of my favorite Victorian writers, Thomas Hardy and George Eliot.

This episode features Kristen proving herself to be terrible with cars (as was the case when she failed at cooking, this just makes me like her more). The America’s Next Top Model end credits music plays at the fashion show in the version that’s currently available (I still wish I could hear whatever pieces of mid-aughts soft rock played during the original episodes. But kudos to the people licensing the music for the episodes on streaming). And I love the classic fade to black when Kristen and Stephen go into the bedroom.

Late Night

Let’s finish the night with Conan.

After Conan finishes his monologue, he heads to the desk and makes a ton of jokes about the upcoming American League Championship Series between his hometown team the Boston Red Sox, and the team that plays where he (and many of his biggest fans) live the New York Yankees. The jokes are good, but it mostly makes me excited to watch Conan experience the roller coaster of the next few weeks.

This episode also contains a very charming interview with Brian Williams, who was about to succeed Tom Brokaw as the anchor of NBC Nightly News. Williams formally welcomes O’Brien to the “on-deck circle.” Williams waited two and a half years to take over for Brokaw, O’Brien would have to wait twice as long. And look how well it all turned out for everyone in the NBC family!

All that, plus Conan books Tom Green and Mitch Hedberg (notably two guests who you probably couldn’t book before midnight).

What Else Was On

On Fox, the curse of the Bambino looked strong as ever as the Red Sox lost to the Yankees 7-10 in the first game of the American League Championship series.

Wednesday, October 13

8:00 Lost on ABC

Record America’s Next Top Model on UPN.

Lost truly arrived the night that “Walkabout,” its fourth episode, aired. It had to compete with the third presidential debate and the surrounding circus. Worse, it was against game two of the American League Championship series. And this was a highly anticipated series since it was between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox (Boston lost 1-3).

It didn’t matter. Lost did well. It did more than well. It beat the baseball game, in total viewers and the 18-49 demo. It beat the ratings for its previous two episodes and came perilously close to matching the shocking blockbuster ratings for its pilot. And Lost had a spectacular episode to go with those spectacular ratings.

Lost is so defined by the discourse surrounding it. “Did they know where it was going?” “Was the ending good?” “Was it worth it?” What’s striking when looking at the press coverage of the show’s early days is that these questions followed the show from the very beginning. People had been disappointed by shows like Lost before, and they were wary and cynical. Could they deliver? Could they keep it up?

That discourse never truly went away, but it’s episodes like Walkabout that make it feel irrelevant. Who cares if a show can “keep it up” when they can deliver an episode like this? This is remembered for its shocking twist that lit up message boards and water coolers around the world: Locke was in a wheelchair before the crash. It delivers that amazing twist and more. It establishes the full potential of the flashback structure, which could develop characters and deliver shocking twists every week. It’s the episode where characters stop reacting to the crash and start settling on the island: holding funerals and gathering food. And It introduces us to the show’s most mysterious character, John Locke, and makes him more interesting, not less. The closing moments of the episode, when Terry O’Quinn’s desperate delivery of “don’t tell me what I can’t do” bleeds into the moment after the crash when his life changes forever, is still one of the series’ best.

It’s a great twist. It reveals so much about Locke. But it also puts the foundational moments of the series in a different context. The first time we saw the plane crash, it was all horror and destruction and chaos. Now we see it as a moment of joy, liberation, and revelation, complete with soaring Michael Giacchino music. It’s not a tragedy, it’s a miracle, and maybe we’re watching a different story than we thought we were. After Walkabout, the possibilities of the show feel endless. And, for all its flaws, Lost delivered on that promise, with endless twists and turns and flights of fancy.

9:00 America's Next Top Model (recorded)

This episode brings the drama. Eavesdropping, a sting operation, stolen crystals, the revelation that the stolen crystals were not stolen, bad hair extensions, crocs, an ugly topless photoshoot for cheap jeans, fights, girls flashing both t and a, and more! My favorite part of all this drama is seeing the girls standing quietly in the background making sure they catch it all or just waiting for it to wrap up so they can go on their yacht trip (which is all to say that Yaya and Kelle both won my heart this episode).

Later The Wire 3x01 (recorded)

The schedule is pretty barren thanks to the presidential debate. I’ve caught up with season two of The Wire so I watch the season three premiere.

It’s a season premiere of The Wire, it’s a lot of set-up, a lot of dense table-setting. But there’s so much to be excited about here. The scope of the opening is amazing. There’s such a sense of history in the cold open. Of Bodie and Poot’s experiences and memories in the towers, but also of our own (I kept on thinking about how Bodie asked for the flower arrangement for D’Angelo’s funeral to be in the shape of Tower 221). Then the towers go down, and the scope is huge, well beyond anything the show has tried before. And the visual storytelling is spectacular too: the clouds of dust and destruction overwhelming the landscape before it flies in people’s faces, and the shot of that red light surrounded by dust before we cut to credits.

Those three things: the sense of shared history for the characters and the audience, the increased scope, and the amazing visual storytelling carry through the rest of the episode. We see that history when McNulty looks at Wallace and D’Angelo’s photos, when we see Wee-Boy again, when “Bunny” Colvin emerges as a major character after his striking appearance in one season two episode. We see new scope when they set a whole scene inside a live Orioles game, proving that the even if the show was ignored by the general public, its reputation was growing in its home city. And the visual storytelling shines in scenes like the one where Cutty returns home, or in Bunny’s drive through the streets of Baltimore.

All that, and this is my favorite credits sequence yet. Bring on season 3.

Even Later Joan of Arcadia 2x01 (recorded)

I also recently finished season 1 of Joan of Arcadia (read my review!), so I watched that season premiere too.

I thought that Joan of Arcadia declined in quality in the second half of its first season, so I approach its second (and final) season with some trepidation (for more on that, see my season 1 review). And there are some promising signs in this premiere.

There’s no detective storyline for Joan’s dad Will, and Joan’s mom Helen gets a great storyline in which she questions her faith and meets a chain-smoking nun played by Constance Zimmer. Joan isn’t listening to God now, which is good, her unthinking joining every extracurricular that God suggested got old by the end of last season. Meanwhile, the drunk driver whose accident paralyzed Joan’s brother Kevin (Jason Ritter) is suing the family for emotional distress. This is intriguing, since it seems like he’s very much in the wrong here. But there is some gray area (Kevin and he were friends, Kevin was more popular, and Kevin knew he was drunk and let him drive anyway). The show is best when it puts Joan and her family in moral gray areas and challenging situations. This lawsuit has the potential to do that. It also has the potential to do the exact opposite of that. We’ll see.

Later

The standout of tonight’s Conan is the election piece. It starts off bad. Did you know that George Bush is just like a fat wife you want to divorce? But later segments are sillier, stranger, and better. Like when they send a dog through a tunnel and see if he’ll come out of the side with Bush or Kerry’s picture on it (Conan assures us this dog has good judgment, since it told Ted Danson to marry Mary Steenburgen). Best of all is when Conan moves to tell us wo he’s voting for, only to be bleeped by ads for NBC’s ailing Thursday night lineup. His mouth is covered by Donald Trump’s face as the man himself tells us to watch his show! Then we smash cut to an ad for Joey. Time has rendered it more strange and disquieting, but it’s still funny.

What Else Was On

On FX, the first season of Rescue Me wrapped up.

Thursday, October 14

8:00 The Wire 3x02 (recorded)

I still have to catch up on The Wire. Hopefully, I can watch the really exciting stuff “live.” Time for season two, episode two.

Is this the funniest episode of The Wire yet? It might be. The detail of thinking they’ve blown the case wide open only to discover they’ve blown their cover over the murder of a dog is one long, glorious brick joke. But what I loved was the Herc and Carver of it all. Herc and Carver have always been the show’s fools, in the Shakespearean sense. But not the kind of fool who cracks witty and wise. The foolish side characters who bumble around until you suddenly realize how important they are. They’re not Feste, they’re Sir Toby and Dir Andrew.

The show embraced that role for them in season two (I loved the bug getting run over by the truck, great stuff). But season three is taking it further. Most of their screen time in this episode is dedicated to one very long no-homo joke at Herc’s expense. It’s a very good no-homo joke, we learn a whole lot about Herc and Carver, their friendship their psychology, and their role in their new unity. Through it all, we see them doing petty police work, throwing their weight around, and not accomplishing much at all. They run into Bode and Poot at the movies and the boys recognize them for the fools they are. So when their commanding officer Bunny Colvin proposes a new way of doing things in his spectacular “paper bag” speech, it hits home. You can tell they’re wary, Herc opines that it’s stupid at the end of the episode. But in the room? They’re listening, and they’re ready to try something new. Coming from these two characters especially, it’s thrilling to watch.

9:00 Joan of Arcadia 2x02 (recorded)

On this episode of Joan of Arcadia, what if God was Mrs. Landingham from The West Wing and she gave you a really good hug?

This episode is much soapier than I prefer. This episode continues to shake things up for all our characters and muddy the waters, which is good. A friend from Joan’s pre-talking to God days arrives and immediately almost dies! Joan’s younger brother continues to date her best friend in secret and they get into an argument about music before everything is solved by Kool and the Gang! Her dad cultivates Mama Barksdale from The Wire as a witness but then she’s killed and he feels guilty. Her mom is reading Immanuel Kant. And her older brother goes to confront the man who was driving the car when he was paralyzed, and it’s very dramatic and sad, complicating the inciting incident of the whole series. I’m intrigued. And after a whole episode of angst and rejecting God’s help only for her friend to almost die, Joan gets a hug from the God played by Kathryn Joosten, and it just very nice.

10:00 ER on NBC

This episode of ER starts to build out the season’s ensemble and explore the new status quo. Susan Lewis drops by with her new baby, indicating that Sherry Stringfield will be back from maternity leave soon. We get to know the new med students, especially the very annoying Shane West. Carter and Corday both lock heads with an annoying new attending. Pratt returns acter the big accident in the premiere, all surly and ailing. The show needs conflict, but this is too much. Shane West is annoying, Pratt is being annoying Carter is being annoying, the new attending is a pill. I just want to see some people pushing carts around and yelling out orders and saving lives and then having emotions when they don’t

I do appreciate that this episode takes place on the Fourth of July, an underexplored holiday in American television.

11:00 Joan of Arcadia 2x03 (recorded)

On this episode of Joan of Arcadia, what if God was some emo guy hanging out under the bleachers at your high school?

In the best Joan of Arcadia episodes, characters stumble around in the dark and make mistakes. They don’t accomplish what they wanted, but they win an existential victory, and can see the world in a new way. this episode of Joan of Arcadia follows that model, and does it beautifully. It involves a community garden, the science teacher (played by Meredith from The Parent Trap), a dramatic deposition, an averted breakup, and an arson investigation. Nothing huge happens. Except the family begins to confront the trauma from the accident that kicked off the whole series, a troubled girl does something brave and becomes part of her community, and a nerdy boy learns how to be a good boyfriend. And that’s all pretty huge, in a way.

Late Night

Tonight’s episode of Conan features an interview with Tracy Morgan. The interview has its ups and downs. He talks about his kids, Jet Blue, surfing, playing a transgender character in an Adam Sandler movie, karaoke, why garbage men are chick magnets and more. The interview is very chaotic, but also very funny, and it’s fun to hear him talk about LA knowing that he’d return to 30 Rockefeller Center in just two years. Also, Al Roker and Conan do synchronized swimming.

What Else Was On

Robin Williams was on Leno, and he’s the perfect Leno interview subject, a force of nature, interesting all by himself. I especially enjoyed his jokes about Gay marriage (Newsom had recently started marrying same-sex couples in Williams’ hometown of San Francisco). He also opines that the phrase “compassionate conservative” is like a “Volvo with a gun rack.” Leno moves to write that one down, the ultimate compliment.

Friday, October 15

8:00 Joan of Arcadia 2x04 (recorded)

Cloris Leachman guest stars on this episode as Joan’s kooky great aunt who the family takes in after she suffers a stroke. She earned one of her record 22 Emmy nominations for her trouble. This part blends in with a lot of Leachman’s other kooky old lady roles from this era. But she does get a lovely scene with Jason Ritter (who plays a wheelchair user on the show), in which he explains that it’s okay to accept help, even if it can make you feel weak when you’re newly disabled. But it can be a sign of kindness and strength. I think the show’s portrayal of disability is nuanced, smart, and compassionate, and this is an example of that. Many disability rights advocates agreed, even as they argued (correctly) that a disabled actor should have been cast in Ritter’s role.

9:00 Thoughtcrimes on USA

USA Network aired Thoughtcrimes, a TV movie that was a TV pilot they didn’t pick it up. Having watched it, I’m bummed they passed. It’s a blatant Alias copycat, but if you're going to copy a TV pilot, copy the Alias pilot! Navi Rawat (Theresa from The OC) goes to prom and starts hearing people’s thoughts on the dancefloor. She’s committed to the psych ward but then she’s recruited by the NSA! Rawat is a great lead, she sells all the turmoil and angst, and it’s satisfying to watch her confidence grow across the 90-minute running time. Joe Morton plays one of her bosses, and he probably would have turned out to be evil and it would have been very fun. It would have run for 40-50 episodes and people would still be discovering it on streaming today.

11:00 The Wire 3x03 (recorded)

One more episode of The Wire before we wrap up the week.

This episode has a lot to offer, including perhaps The Wire‘s best action scene to date. Omar and his crew raid another stash house. Everything seems to be going according to plan until we see the backup crew quietly getting ready. A gunfight breaks out, leaving people dead on both sides. The gunfight is long, unpredictable, and terrifying, the losses feel brutal. And we watch the fallout throughout the episode. Stringer sees an opportunity to further hurt Omar. Omar’s associates are furious and devastated. So is Omar but he puts on a brave face.

But most thrilling of all is seeing the events through Bunk’s eyes. He’s called away from the pointless and hopeless task of tracking down a single police gun to case the scene of the crime. As he observes the scene, he notices a group of kids pretending to be Omar and his crew. It’s a self-reflexive moment for the show, as it contemplates the power of stories and legends, and its role in creating those legends. And seeing kids look to Omar as a hero resonates in this episode. I don’t think we’ve ever seen him more hopeless, or less heroic. Even after Brandon was murdered, he was all action. Things are bleak for him, and everyone. At least a few of our series regulars are getting laid?

12:35

Tonight’s Conan opens with a series of truly rancid jokes about the recent sexual harassment suit against Bill O’Reilly. Apparenyly O’Reilly’s ratings went up in the wake of the scandal. That’s depressing all by itself. But Conan decided the funniest thing he could do was sexually harass his bandleader as a joke. Which takes things to new lows.

There is some fun stuff in the rest of the episode. The dueling Frankenstein adaptations on Hallmark and the USA network inspired a very goofy-taped bit. Tonight’s guests were Jason Schwartzman and Ritter, so it was a nepo baby reunion. Their interview is honestly very charming, and includes a surprise creepy doll, continuing the spooky theme.

Tivo Status

5 episodes of Everwood, 1 episode of The Wire, and a four hour Mystery! miniseries. 10 hours, with 13 hours of space left.