J: TV of 2011

So the Golden Globe nominations were announced about a week ago and I came to the possibly sad realization that despite the fact that I have a TV blog and my DVR spent most of the year over 80% full, I watch precious few of the nominated shows (only Modern Family and New Girl in the Comedy/musical category, and none of the dramas). I guess I can put most of it on the fact that I don't have premium cable...and the rest on the fact that the Golden Globes are just dumb! Here's the TV that I thought was worth watching this year!

1. Downton Abbey - SO addictive. On the surface it seems like just your run-of-the-mill British costume drama but actually it's on steroids. I'm so frickin excited for season 2 to start on PBS in January!
2. Friday Night Lights - Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose! I was so excited that the show was finally recognized by the Emmys also!
3. The Vampire Diaries - The craziness continues. I don't know how the writers manage to keep pumping out story at the pace that they do. I was initially worried about how big a role they were giving Klaus this season but I shouldn't have been -- the way they've tied Stefan and even Tyler in the storyline has been surprising and as always, a whole lot of fun.
4. Parks and Recreation - There's just so much here -- Ron Swanson of course, Andy and April's wedding, Leslie and Ben finally getting together and then breaking up and getting back together, Entertainment 720, Lil Sebastian...it's smart and funny and maybe most importantly, really cheery and optimistic. Leslie Knope for America!
5. Community - Maybe one of the most daring and creative shows on TV because of the way it plays with structure. It doesn't always work -- sometimes it falls of the edge into complete wackadoo (I did not find Pierce's father to be funny in the least) -- but when it does, it's brilliant. They're still finding new and interesting dynamics among the characters (like the recently discovered shared past of Jeff and Shirley) and have found a good balance between all the weirdness and the sentimental stuff lying beneath the surface.
6. Justified - I still find it hard to explain why in the world I love this show about a US Marshal in Kentucky who wears a Stetson hat. But man was the show good this season. Mags Bennett was one of the freshest TV villains in years.
7.  Doctor Who - I finally caught up to the Eleventh Doctor this year and he might actually be my favorite. And I totally want to be Amy Pond!
8. Cougar Town - It hasn't returned this season yet but in the spring it was one of my favorites. It's so silly but with a good dose of heart.
9. Love in the Wild - Every once in awhile a reality show just totally hooks me. Thanks Mira! And the top two couples, Samantha & Mike and Heather & Miles are still together! Take that, The Bachelor/ette!
10. Greek - I'm so happy that the show got to have a proper ending. Most people probably saw the show as pretty inconsequential but I was always really impressed with its continuity and attention to detail and just all the really fun characters it produced like Cappie and Rebecca and Katherine and Dale...I wish my own college experience had been that fun!

Thursday Top Threes: Pilots

J: The fall TV season is almost here! What are your top three favorite pilot/series premiere episodes of all time?


Mira:
1. Pushing Daisies: I can still imagine scenes from this pilot, and it's been a couple years since I've watched it. Ned describing bringing his mom back to life, only to accidentally kill her again; running around in a meadow of daisies with his dog (Digby?) and then his dog gets hit by a vehicle and he brings the dog back to life; describing Chuck's crazy mermaid aunts... It was so vibrant and represents the show's quirkiness so perfectly in 40 minutes.
2. Glee: This episode also well represents what made Glee so exciting and fun and great in the beginning! From highlighting all the characters through their audition songs to introducing snarky Sue, gullible Finn, enthusiastic Mr. Schuester... And of course, "Don't Stop Believing."  Perfection. :)
3. Alias: This is the only pilot episode of a show that hooked me so much I ended up watching 8 straight episodes in a row.  Actually no, Veronica Mars may have hooked me in a similar way. (I watched the entire first season over the span of one weekend.) But I'll still give Alias an edge. I mean the red wig, the Chinese speaking, the excitement of a story told forward and backward -- it was a great pilot!

 Jennifer:
1. Friday Night Lights: I hadn't seen the movie, I didn't know anything about Texas, I had no interest in football, but this pilot, especially the second half, just shot me straight through the heart. Love love LOVE.
2. Lost: I ended up having plenty of problems with this show, but one thing I'll give J.J. Abrams is that he definitely knows how to start off a show (perhaps that's why he's had more success in movies lately). There was a lot to set up -- a huge cast of characters, the flashback construct, the mystery/possibly sci-fi style and atmosphere -- and it was hugely successful with all of it. It's been rare that a pilot excited me as much as this one.
3. Roswell: A less obvious choice, perhaps, but don't forget that this show was created and written by Jason Katims who went on to run FNL and Parenthood. All the characters are introduced so well, the use of music is amazing (especially love the first scene in the Crashdown of Max saving Liz with Sarah McLachlan's "Fear" building in the background), and there's a nice balance of romance, humor, action, and suspense. Ah, the old days of the WB...

Friday Night Lights: Always

I actually finished watching the final season of Friday Night Lights a couple of months ago when it aired on DirecTV but I decided to wait to blog about it until it closed out on NBC (which it did last night) and in a way that's let me kind of push off dealing with the fact that it really is all over. What I really want to do now is watch it all from the beginning again!

You know, I'm so thankful that we got five seasons of this show. Despite instant and fervent critical acclaim, the ratings were a disappointment from the start and it seemed like it was always on the verge of cancellation. But in a rare example of a TV network having faith in a quality show, it survived to a second season. And then DirecTV made an unprecedented deal to share costs and airing of the show which guaranteed the next three seasons.

Yes, there were missteps (ahem, second season), characters stuck in the same storylines over and over again (Street, Tyra, Julie),  things that never panned out (Santiago? Hastings? Epyck?) but overall, I don't hesitate to call this one of the highest quality shows in television. And it did it all with pretty much no flash or glamour. It rarely ventured outside of Dillon and never strayed from the honest and bare but amazingly un-melodramatic emotions that defined it from the very first episode. I have no personal connection to Texas, small towns or high school football, but this town, these characters, their stories... they got to me.

The last time I blogged about the show was in the middle of season 4, so let's talk about the last two seasons first. At the end of season 3, the show did something pretty risky. After ambiguously advancing the original cast of teenagers through high school, most of them finally graduated and ostensibly left the show. But instead of having Coach Taylor move on with the next generation of Dillon Panthers, it completely shook things up. Building tensions between Coach and the boosters throughout the season finally blew up with his ousting from the Panthers, but the surprise: a second high school was being reopened, East Dillon, and he was hired on to build their football program, the Lions. And just like that, Panther blue was suddenly evil!

I was initially hesitant about this move, but it became clear in season 4 that this was very smart. It put Coach Taylor in a completely different environment and introduced us to different kinds of characters. The Panthers retained nearly all their old players but East Dillon had to start from scratch with all kids from the less privileged areas of town (burning question, how does Dillon have so much "town" anyway??). Coach Taylor was now dealing with kids who'd never played football before, a far cry from the legacy born-and-bred Panthers across town. Landry and Julie (still seniors in season 4, don't ask) transfer over to East Dillon and bridge the gap to the new cast of teenagers introduced. While in the first generations of teens there wasn't really a main character, this time around there is one: Vince Howard, who eventually becomes quarterback. Wonderfully played by Michael B. Jordan, Vince has been in trouble with the law and is basically forced to join the Lions as a "last chance" and immediately reveals natural talent. His family situation proved to be one of the more interesting forces in the last season, as his absentee father returns and clashes with Coach Taylor in how to handle Vince's suddenly bountiful college prospects.

A big surprise among the new characters: Becky Sproles. She wasn't even credited in the main cast for season 4 despite having been in almost every episode but over the last two seasons she really grew into her own. Initially she kind of annoyed me with her fixation on Tim Riggins (he was living in her mother's trailer) but the episode where she discovers she's pregnant and has an abortion really drew me over to her side. In season 5, finding herself essentially abandoned by her somewhat awful parents, she forges a surrogate family with, of all people, Billy and Mindy Riggins, which led to some of the funniest scenes in the series. Mindy and her stripper friends just amused me to no end.  It's really funny how Billy and Mindy became such mainstays of the series. On the surface they're pretty horrible examples for Becky but they, especially Mindy, become fiercely protective of her in a way she'd never experienced before. Becky also has a nice slow-burn storyline with Luke Cafferty, a former star Panther who was exposed to actually be zoned for East Dillon.

One of my favorite things from the early seasons were the scenes of Matt and Smash and Riggins and Landry just hanging out together on the football field late at night and there was one episode in season 5 that kind of recreated that magic with the new generation bonding on a road trip to an away game, getting drunk on the balconies of their motel. I also loved the relatively minor re-introduction and rehabilitation of Buddy Garrity Jr. Talk about perfect casting!

Speaking of the original generation, I can't not talk about Tim Riggins and Matt Saracen. Tim first. It wasn't any surprise that Tim just decided that he didn't like college and came back to Dillon. But what was a surprise was the path they took him down after his return. Strapped for cash, Billy starts an illegal chop shop operation and Tim helps, reluctantly, but when it all goes bad, Tim takes the fall and goes to prison. When he's released in season 5 (with the help of Coach and Buddy Garrity) he's a completely different man. Angry, jaded, downtrodden...it's Tim like we'd never seen him before. Out of all the characters I think it's probably the least clear where Tim will end up in the future but the series did end on a hopeful note for him.

Now Matt: Zach Gilford had one of the best performances of season 4 in "The Son," where Matt deals with his father's death. Matt had put off art school in Chicago to stay in Dillon to take care of his grandma (and be with Julie) but was clearly drifting and the news of his father, who's been overseas in Iraq for years and who he barely knows, rocked him. In the next episode, he picks up and finally leaves Dillon. He returns for an arc in the second half of season 5 after Julie comes out of yet another rebellious and ridiculous crisis that causes her to leave college. I loved loved the scenes of their reunion and how they fell back in step with eachother. Julie alone can be really awful but with Matt...they just make sense. That's probably why I wasn't too outraged when the writers decided to go down the annoying married young route with them in the finale. It did serve as a catalyst for a much more interesting story with her parents' marriage, and hey, this is fiction and no one's going to sway me from believing that Matt and Julie are destined to be Eric and Tami version 2.0.

That brings us to the heart of this show: the Taylors. I don't really know what to say that hasn't been said. It was so wonderful to see a portrait of a marriage so strong but not always perfect. I think probably every fan of this show wants either to be the Taylors or for them to be their parents, or both. Their conflict in the series finale was so amazingly drawn. Tami, who's always supported and followed, for the most part, Eric in his coaching career, is now the one with a career opportunity of a lifetime: becoming dean of admissions at a college in Philadelphia. (How does one go from high school guidance counselor to principal to college dean of admissions in 5 years? Be awesome as Tami Taylor, obviously.) Eric at first doesn't even see moving as a possibility which is a huge blow to Tami. After yet another Julie crisis (announcing that she and Matt are engaged), Eric admits that it's her time. And the series ends with the Taylors in Philadelphia, Tami in her element at the college, and Coach with a new group of boys to inspire.

There's a ton of stuff that I haven't even gotten to--this is a monumental post already--but that just goes to show how brilliant and important this show has been over the years. Coincidentally, the show finally got its first Emmy nomination for Best Drama Series this week (along with well-deserved repeat nods for Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton). It probably won't win but I'm happy that it got that recognition at all.

Check out this wonderful oral history of the show, and to end on a happy note:


CLEAR EYES, FULL HEARTS, CAN'T LOSE!

M+J: Greek, Final Season

So... Trying something different, Jenn and I decided to blogchat about one of our favorite TV shows right now: Greek!

Mira: So I'm super excited for this final season of Greek!
Jennifer: Me too, I'm glad they designated this as the last season so they can wrap everything up, hopefully.
Mira: Yes! And I'm liking how they are rolling the main characters back into the mix.
Jennifer: Yeah it's kind of unrealistic that they're ALL coming back but oh well.
Mira: I'm kinda wondering where exactly they're going to go with Ashleigh's return to CRU... Plus, I'm not looking forward to potential Ashleigh-Rusty coupling...
Jennifer: Yeah I was excited that Ashleigh was the one who was getting out there in the real world.
Mira: But how she just picked up and ran away is at least somewhat understandable for her character... NYC can be scary!
Jennifer: Especially since she was an unpaid intern...
Mira: And she's obviously a pampered pretty girl who doesn't understand the concept of roughing it...
Jennifer: Right. I thought it was crazy that she thought Casey being in DC was going to help. That's far!
Mira: Haha, yeah, but closer than OHIO! (That's where CRU is, right?)
Jennifer: I think so...the part of Ohio where it never gets cold, haha.
Mira: LOL, that's totally true!
Jennifer: I think Cappie commented on that once.
Mira: Ooh, Cappie! I'm glad they have a chance to give us good closure on Cappie-Casey!
Jennifer: I like seeing Cappie actually try too. I'm curious to see if he'll actually pick a major. It has to be something appropriate though. Not sure what!
Mira: Yes, I'm wondering if this philosophy thing will be it actually. :) Though I like this revelation about Calvin.
Jennifer: Yeah I guess we never really did know what Calvin was studying
Mira: Nor has much been developed about Calvin beyond OX and being gay.
Jennifer: Right..I'm a little disappointed that he gave up the presidency though
Mira: Especially since Chip is frickin' annoying!
Jennifer: Seriously!
Mira: I'm wondering when Dale's betrayal is going to come out...after HE was the reason Calvin got ousted as president!
Jennifer: Was it really Dale who called the cops on the KTs?
Mira: Yeah, I think so. His trade off for a bid... No pledges for KT, and Dale gets OX...
Jennifer: I guess that makes sense but it seems a little too mean for Dale.
Mira: Dale can be extremely self-serving and selfish, though. That's been evident throughout.
Jennifer: That's true, he was really competitive with that science project thing
Mira: The stupid robot wars! HAHAHA. BTW, I like Spidey, the pledge. Mini-Rusty! :)
Jennifer: Haha I don't even know his real name!
Mira: Okay, okay, I guess we can go off tangentially (Peter Parks? Park? Not quite Parker)... but let's focus a bit -- what do you hope to see at the end of this series?
Jennifer: Definitely Casey and Cappie closure of some kind. I want them to end up together but not in an unrealistic way. I think I'm already ok with where everyone else is. I like Rebecca as ZBZ president.
Mira: I definitely want Casey and Cappie together. I'd also like Cappie and Evan to get back to being friends. I liked them a lot as friends.
Jennifer: That's a good one. I'm not sure what they're doing with Evan this season either. I guess he's still trying to prove himself outside of his name
Mira: Yeah, that's true. I like Evan with Rebecca but it's always weird how he is with Casey. Sigh. But I'm Casey-Cappie all the way. I also want really want Katherine to have more of a presence in the show and in their lives. She's such a fun character.

Jennifer: Definitely, I was really happy to see her back. We've really only had ZBZ girls on the show.
Mira: Hahaha, I was thrilled, too! :)
Jennifer: So it's nice to have someone different
Mira: And not annoying! like Katherine's sorority sister (the president)?
Jennifer: I'm not really a fan of Rusty's girlfriend Dana...I like the idea of Dana (smart and nerdy and not a sorority girl) but not so much her specifically.
Mira: I'm okay with her. Actually it's weird this season, cuz we're getting a lot on the fraternities, OX and KT, but because Casey's not really a part of the sorority anymore, I'm wondering how much of the sorority life they'll roll in... I really liked the little bits they've included in the past, like the singing competition.
Jennifer: Yeah, and I do like the peripheral ZBZ girls.
Mira: I really wanted Abby to end up with Dale. Except now Dale is a tool and doesn't deserve Abby either.
Jennifer: I totally forgot about that. I think Betsy is hilarious too.
Mira: She is! You know it's this thing where Cappie doesn't graduate... But what about his brothers? Beaver??
Jennifer: Haha, I guess they've never specifically given the years of the other brothers. But it's definitely plausible that Beaver is a super senior.
Mira: PLUS, Cappie's been president for three years... Or two years. The show operates on a weird schedule. Weren't there other actual upperclassmen in KT?
Jennifer: Well there was the Asian guy Wade, who got kicked out.
Mira: Maybe I'm just not supposed to question this... :)
Jennifer: At least they're clear what years the main characters are in. Unlike say, Friday Night Lights.
Mira: Haha, true. Like Rusty is actually a junior now.
Jennifer: Right, Rusty, Calvin and Rebecca are all juniors.
Mira: Oh, Rebecca's president as a junior! And not that ditzy blonde.
Jennifer: Rebecca needs a new storyline, too.
Mira: Other than Evan?!?! Sigh. Agree!
Jennifer: We don't know what her major is either, do we?
Mira: Nope, no clue. In any case, I'm really enjoying this season so far. I like where it's going and I cannot wait to get to happily ever after. It better end on happily ever after!!!
Jennifer: I hope so too. I'm sad it's ending but glad that it didn't get cancelled before resolving anything
Mira: Yeah, I much prefer a show that chooses to end to one that gets ended. It's a tiny bit surprising that they didn't choose to end it at a more final point. Either Casey's graduation last season or Rusty's graduation in another year. But maybe it'll end on Cappie's graduation. ;-)
Jennifer: Well I don't think they necessarily chose to end it. I think ABC Family decided to give them a final season.
Mira: Oh, boo. Oh well. I like closure and so we have a shot at that. And if it continues to be as awesome as it has been -- buying the full series DVD set! :)

fall 2010

My life has been especially nutso this semester with school and work and, well, trying to keep my DVR percentage low enough to record all the shows in the coming week (it's a hard life!), so blogging has been difficult... But here's a quick little run down of my opinions on Fall TV thus far:

Shows I've already dropped:
- $#*! My Dad Says -- The comedic pauses are just awkward and annoying. Shatner is not the most annoying actor on the show, which already speaks volumes in my mind. One last thing, the show had one funny line and it was not shit said by the dad. Shatner is at the DMV taking the eye exam and is asked to read the large E at the top of the chart. Shatner: "I've never been rear-ended by a large letter E." DMV employee: "You've never driven on Sesame Street."
- Running Wilde -- I love Keri Russell but even she can't keep this show on my priority watch list.
- 90210 (though I dropped it halfway through last season) -- I know I already dropped this, but seeing the stuff going on and reading the spoilers on what is to come... Good riddance!
- Life Unexpected -- Jenn's entry sums it up perfectly. Forced dramatic story lines are just too much! Though it cracks me up that a Melrose Place (new, not old) reject has landed over here.

Shows I'm already committed to:
- Nikita -- Somehow this show became an immediate watch show for me, but I really like the complexity of each character and the fact that they all contribute layers of depth to the show.
- Hellcats -- I like peppy tv shows.
- Grey's Anatomy -- I forgot about the season ending with the shooting spree and the new season dealing with aftermath of that has been built up brilliant so far.
- Private Practice -- I still like the characters on the show enough to keep watching it, though the storylines aren't captivating.
- Parenthood -- This show just keeps getting better for me. The best family drama.

Shows I meant to watch but forgot about:
- Better With You -- Like Jenn, I really like Joanna Garcia.

Shows still sitting on my DVR:
- Lone Star
- The Event
- Hawaii Five-O
- Undercovers
- The Whole Truth
- My Generation
- Chuck

Shows I'm still looking forward to:
- No Ordinary Family -- But the stupid show is on at the same time as Glee and NCIS! Sigh, so this may end up going the route of Modern Family, where I mean to catch up online but forget to. Hopefully not!
- Glee, Episode 2 (cuz Episode 1 was a bit disappointing) -- Cannot wait for Brittany (my favorite character!) and BRITNEY (Spears)!
- The Good Wife
- Friday Night Lights, the final season! :(

On the cusp:
- Outlaw
- How I Met Your Mother -- We better meet the stupid mother this season. And that wedding in the season premier better be Barney and Robin's wedding.
- Gossip Girl

BTW, an awful lot of weddings in the season premier this year -- Grey's Anatomy had one, Private Practice had one, HIMYM had one!

Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can't Lose.

This is Burkie, guest blogging about Friday Night Lights. Jenn & Mira have written quite a bit about this show already (as you'll discover if you click on the tag below), and it was because of one of these posts that Jenn convinced me to give the show a try. I watched some of Season 4 (On-Demand) and liked it. Then Jenn--through Mira--loaned me Seasons 1-3 on DVD. Now that I've finished watching, I'd like to post some comments from my perspective.

And what is my perspective, you may ask? Well, I'll tell ya. I'm a Texan, and I went to high school in a Texas town of about 15,000 with a single high school. We had a huge (compared to HS football fields around here), rock-front stadium built by the WPA. I was on the field for every single varsity football practice and game of my sophomore, junior, and senior years. Actually, I was on the sideline, not the field. I was the student trainer. The (adult) athletic trainer & I taped ankles and knees, provided first aid & physical therapy to players during practices and games, etc. I was there during all the pre-game, post-game, and half-time speeches. I spent more time with the coaching staff than I did the players. So...I know a little about what FNL is supposed to be about.

In case you were wondering, I can confirm the following:

1. Yes, high school football really is that big and that important. Our football team was not that great; we never made the playoffs. Our baseball team my junior year made it to the state finals (and lost), but the baseball games were never the event that football games were, nor garnered the attention that our football games and teams and players got. Fair? No. Reality? Yes. In fact, I was only required to be the student trainer for the football team, not for any of the other teams.

2. Yes, boosters like Buddy Garrity and Joe McCoy really do exist, and they really do have more influence than they should, to include securing starting jobs for kids that don't deserve it. The football team had a customized, Greyhound-type bus that we traveled on; no other team in the school got to use it.

3. Yes, despite the separation between church and state that should exist, team prayers are not only led in the locker room and on the football field, but there is always an invocation read over the PA at the beginning of the game. It happens at graduation ceremonies, National Honor Society induction ceremonies, team banquets, etc.

4. Yes, women wear cowboy boots with skirts and guys wear cowboy hats at weddings. And everywhere else, for that matter.

I'm just as confused as anybody else about the following:

1. Where the hell in Texas the made-up town of Dillon is supposed to be and how big it's supposed to be. At times, they make it seem like a really small town. Everybody goes to the same church. Everybody in town, it seems, went to Billy & Mindy's wedding (even though they are minor characters who happen to be siblings of more central characters). Yet, it is (beginning in season 3), large enough to have to have 2 high schools and it apparently has a Marriott. They seem to run to Austin quite a bit as if it's not too far away, but in one episode when Buddy wanted to meed Coach Taylor halfway between Austin & Dillon, they picked a spot about 2 hours away from each, making Dillon 4 hours from Austin. It's also close enough for Coach Taylor & Smash to make a day trip to College Station (Texas A&M) 2 hours east of Austin, though he admitted they drove a long way. Yet, in another episode, they were apparently close enough to the oil wells in West Texas for Tyra to run off on a field trip with a guy who was investing in them or something. Yet, they're also close enough to Dallas for Coach & Mrs. Coach (as Matt calls her) to run up there to rescue Tyra one night. I'm stumped.

2. How is a kid like Tim Riggins able to buy so much beer, even in his sophomore year? He drank more beer in high school than I did, and that's saying a lot! Not that I was a teenage drunk or anything, but the drinking age was 18 when i was in high school; it's 21 for Riggins. Also, where does he get the money for the beer? Or the truck he drives? Or the house he lives in? He has no job, and his brother Billy, with whom he lives, is constantly losing one low-paying job after another.

3. How do Tim Riggins & Tyra manage to skip school seemingly every other day and never get expelled? Also, Riggins made several multi-day trips out of town, missing days of football practice even during the playoffs, and only once did Coach Taylor enforce some kind of punishment.

4. Where is the student trainer?!?! Those ankles don't tape themselves!

5. Rally girls. We didn't have them. That I know of.

There are other questions, but those keep coming to mind. They don't matter, though. This show is consistently entertaining despite those things. The characters are genuine. Does that mean I like all of them? No, just like I don't particularly like every genuine person I know. They make the show compelling though. Mostly. Most of them. My take on some of the characters:

Coach (Eric) & Mrs. Coach (Tami) Taylor. As wonderful as some of the other characters are, this pair makes the show what it is. Quite possibly the best married couple in the history of television, which is a saying an awful lot as there is probably at least one married couple in over 90% of every television series ever produced. I stand by it, though. It's hard for me to say whether it's because the characters are so well developed or because Kyle Chandler & Connie Britton do such a great job portraying them. I guess it's both. If I'm a football player, I want to play for him; if I'm a student, I want her as my guidance counselor or principal. If I'm a parent, I want him to be my kid's coach, and I want my kid to go to her school. If I'm married, I want a relationship like they have.

Julie Taylor & Matt Saracen. The coach's daughter & his quarterback are sweethearts during Seasons 1 and 3; not so much in Season 2. They are much more likable and interesting when they are a couple, especially Julie. Matt is someone you root for no matter what: hardworking, humble, respectful, never quite sure of himself, underdog--all the attributes you could want in a good kid. Julie is also a good kid, except when she's being a brat. And she was a brat throughout Season 2 and, at times, in Season 3. Every teenage girl is entitled to be a brat at times, but her character was bratty more often than required, I thought.

Smash & his mom. Smash is the great high school running back who knows how great he is, embraces it, and is his own biggest fan, yet still comes out as incredibly likable. You just shake your head at his excesses and accept him. As much as I like Smash, though, I like his mama even more. I wish they could've found a reason for her to remain on the show after he left for college. The phrase "keeping it real" has become trite, but she embodies that sentiment.

Tim Riggins. After seeing Riggins in a few episodes in Season 4 and the first several episodes of Season 1, I told Mira that he was unlikable in every episode I'd seen him in and, in my opinion, not even that good-looking. She disagreed with me a bit about the latter part, and said that he has his moments. I can finally agree with her on that. Despite the problems I mentioned with him above, most of the time he's either playing football, drunk/getting drunk, or just being broody & sullen. Riggins is the guy who never catches a break. His best moments are not when he's with a girl or trying to accomplish something, but when he's interacting with other people. As Jenn mentioned in one of her posts, he was funny when he's forced to be involved with girl's volleyball or the powderpuff football game. Some of my favorite scenes in the series have been when Riggins and some of the other guys are on the football field in the middle of the night, drinking & talking & playing.

Landry Clark and Tyra Collette. Landry is my favorite character after Coach, Mrs. Coach, and Smash's mama. I liked him most when he was just Matt's best friend and not on the team or even interested in football. His being on the team has added nothing to either his character or the show, in my opinion. I like how the coach always thinks his name is Lance, though. He is the character I most identify with; they should've made him the student trainer! He's the funniest character on the show. He's self-deprecating and can say funny things that are critical but not disparaging to other people. I like how his thoughts are always so convoluted that he's always talking or explaining things even after the person he's talking to has walked away. He wears funny shirts; he's kinda funny looking. He's smart and dorky. He has a rock band. Yeah, I can relate :) Guys like him never get the girl, though. I love him & Tyra together, I really do, but that just doesn't happen. Tyra is a good character, in that I've known a Tyra or two. She's genuine. However, I really only like her when she's interacting with Landry either as a friend or a girlfriend.

Jason Street & Lyla Garrity. I've never warmed to either of these characters. I can sympathize with what happened to Street. I remember playing Weatherford the first game of my junior year and the coaches called a play for our best player--running back Cleo White, one of the fastest sprinters in the state at that time. They were waiting for the perfect time to call the play; I remember it distinctly. We were probably on our own 40 and the coaches started calling "Run it!" down the sideline. The play went in, they got the ball to Cleo on the outside with open space in front of him and he took off. No way was anybody going to stop him. Somehow, impossibly, Weatherford had a player--Number 11--run Cleo down from behind and tackle him. And break his leg. I helped carry him off the field, and he was out for the season. Not as tragic as what happened to Jason Street, I know, but I know what it's like to suffer a serious injury to your star player in the first game of the year. That was a good way to start this series off, but I think they kept his character around a couple of seasons too long. And Lyla Garrity...I felt bad for the circumstances she found herself in over the years, but never really cared enough for her to root for her.

I've now watched all of Seasons 1-3 and part of season 4. I will definitely watch all of Season 5, which NBC has already announced is going to be the last. The developments of Season 4--namely that Coach Taylor was forced to leave Dillon High School and become the head football coach at East Dillon High School, presented some fresh directions for the series to explore, but I think it will become way too contrived if they continue to find ways for characters to linger around when they should be gone. Thanks for recommendation and the loan, Jenn! And thanks again to you & Mira for letting me play in your sandbox here :)

Friday Night Lights: Game Changer

I just realized that haven't blogged about Friday Night Lights in awhile. Despite my complete ignorance of all things football and especially Texas high school football, I was totally in love with this show from the start and was kind of distressed at how the ratings were never good and how it was always on the verge of cancellation and how it got no love from the Emmys or Golden Globes. Season 2 took a bit of a dip creatively though, and I was sure that it was going to get canned but then NBC did something really surprising and made a deal with DirecTV to "share" the show, with DirecTV airing the season first, then NBC later on. Seasons 4 is currently airing on NBC now, and season 5 is already guaranteed (and possibly the last). It's pretty amazing to think that we're going to have 5 seasons (well 1 full season and 4 half-seasons) of a show that was so close to being another "brilliant but cancelled" situation.

Anyway, because of the strange airing schedule, I somehow missed out on talking about season 3 altogether. It's been kind of a long time since it finished but I really did love it. Like I said, season 2 had a lot of problems, call it a sophomore slump or something, but season 3 really brought things back on track. Matt Saracen is probably my favorite character and I despised his storylines in season 2, so I was really glad that season 3 brought him back together with Julie (in a nice, slow natural way too), and I also loved the arc that got him demoted from QB1 because of young phenom JD. The conflict in both him and Coach Taylor was just so well done. Of course Matt is almost family to the Taylors and he's led the team to a state championship so demoting him during his senior year was pretty terrible but outside pressures concering JD's raw talent were palpable. I also liked that Matt admitted that he knew he wasn't as talented as JD, and that with Julie's help he found himself another role on the team. And of course I loved that he got to step back in during the state game when JD had a meltdown, even though they still ended up losing.

Season 3 also brought us goodbye arcs for original characters Smash and Street. While I was initially kind of annoyed that Smash had an offscreen injury that prevented him from taking the scholarship that they spent so much time getting him to in the previous season, his goodbye episode was really fantastic. (That's one thing that I've noticed about me and FNL...there are so many contrivances and inconsistencies but I'm really forgiving because of how great the acting and writing and emotions can be. On a lesser show those things could have been a dealbreaker for me.)

As for Jason Street, I was never a big fan of how the show could never really figure out what to do with him. He seemed to just always be repeating the same cycle of finding something that he really thought he was good at and putting his all into it (coaching, wheelchair rugby, selling cars, etc), only to have it be crushed or just peter out. I thought it was pretty random for him to become a dad from a one-night stand, and even more random that he ends up a with a sports agent job in New York, but I'm glad he got out of Dillon and got a somewhat happy ending. (Another funny thing is that while obviously I love Dillon as the setting for the show, I still want all the teen characters I like to eventually get out.)

In other storylines, I did like Tyra and Landry reuniting, although Tyra was sort of another character that just seemed to be going through the same thing over and over again, in her case with her ambition/college plans. The scenes with Landry where she reads her college essay and then later when she gets her acceptance letter to UT were really poignant and wonderful. I also found Tim and Lyla to be a strangely perfect couple and kind of loved how Buddy Garrity's life fell apart but he ended up being a much more likable person because of it.

The season 3 finale really set up a lot of interesting things for this current season. Lyla, Tyra, and Tim were off to college, but Matt was not. (Julie and Landry somehow did not graduate...don't ask.) The tensions that had been escalating all season with JD and his heinous dad (FNL's only out-and-out villain) resulted in Coach Taylor getting fired from the Panthers...but then hired as coach for the new high school being reopened across town, East Dillon High.

And just like that, the Panthers we've loved and been rooting for all this time are suddenly...evil! JD becomes a total douche over the summer, all the remaining teen characters left (Julie, Landry, Devin) transfer over to East Dillon, and all the new teen characters are there as well. Because of all the crazy zoning and gerrymandering that Buddy championed last season, Dillon has retained nearly all the Panthers, and so the Lions have to start from scratch. East Dillon is the "bad" part of town (although for some reason this means the school is predominantly black and not Hispanic like I would have thought) and we're introduced to Vince, who's never played football and is forced to join the football team as an alternative to juvenile detention. Also on the team is Luke, a former Panther whose "official address" turns out to just be a mailbox on an empty lot but actually lives on a farm in East Dillon. (Oh, and Landry, who the coach still calls Lance.)

At first I was skeptical of all this change, but it's turned out to be a really good thing for the show. With most of the original characters gone, it makes sense to basically start over. Instead of the pressures of being a team with plenty of success in their history, with kids that have played football their entire lives, now we're following a team that's starting from nothing, which is a completely different challenge. Friday Night Lights has never been shy about about tackling race and class issues and now it's in the forefront more than ever.

As for our old favorites, Tim pretty much immediately drops out of college (disappointing but not all that surprising), Landry finds yet another girl, and Matt has stuck around town for his Grandma and Julie and is attending community college and delivering pizza (I love him but he's another one that really needs to get out of town). Yesterday's episode found Matt dealing with the news of his father's death overseas and was really one of the best of the series overall. Zach Gilford was so fantastic in it, I'm definitely sad that he's going to be leaving the series soon as well.

So if you've forgotten about Friday Night Lights or are just behind, definitely come back! Seasons 1-3 are streaming on Netflix and the current season is streaming on Hulu. No excuses!

New winter TV

There is SO MUCH new TV premiering in the next couple of weeks, and an annoyingly large number of them are on Mondays. WTF? What I'll be watching:

1. Battlestar Galactica. Final season, all will be revealed??

2. 24. It's been quite awhile, and I never finished watching the last season of this show, but I kind of liked the Redemption special so I'm definitely planning on watching. I'm a little upset about Tony coming back from the dead and being evil though because he was one of my favorites. I'm secretly hoping he won't turn out to be truly evil?

3. Damages. Originally I wasn't too keen on a second season of this show, but Glenn Close is so damn good I can't complain.

4. Kyle XY. I can't really explain my love for this show...perhaps it's just the teen sci-fi aspect that isn't found elsewhere on TV anymore. In any case, I'm super excited, especially with reports that it'll be more action-packed.

5. Scrubs. Now on ABC, also possibly the final season? What can I say, it's just kooky and fun and the only medical show I watch.

6. Dollhouse. The new Joss Whedon show with Eliza Dushku. It sounds pretty out there, as one would expect from Joss, and it's been doomed to a Friday night timeslot on FOX, which definitely has no qualms about canceling shows right away, and at the same time I wonder if it's been hyped up too much. I remain optimistic though and I can't wait.

7. Friday Night Lights. The season has already been airing on DirecTV but now it's finally coming to NBC. I think it's likely this is the last season but really I'm just thankful we got to a third one at all.

8. The Bachelor. I know, I'm ridiculous. But I really did like Jason from the last season of the Bachelorette....I thought he was truly decent and it sucked that he got down on one knee to propose and then got rejected. I think it'll be interesting to see how he deals with being the one to have to date multiple people now because he seems very honest and genuine. God knows why I still have hope that he found someone for real when the show's track record basically sucks.

9. America's Best Dance Crew. I don't think I mentioned it but I went to the live tour this past fall and it was really pretty awesome. I wasn't a faithful viewer either the first or second seasons but I might tune in this season. Especially with reports that Dominic and Hok from So You Think You Can Dance season 3 and their crew might be on it.

10. Bromance/The City. Yeah, it just gets worse. But I woke up at 3am last night and couldn't sleep and found Bromance on the air. And it was just really kind of hilarious. (Apparently this show and Momma's Boys were both developed by Ryan Seacrest. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that nugget.) As for The City...I stopped watching The Hills last year because I just couldn't handle Speidi anymore and all of Lauren's self-righteous friendship drama was becoming intolerable, but I always liked Whitney. That said, I'm kind of surprised she agreed to headline her own show because she was always a bit guarded about her personal life. Now she's inviting this weird level of manufactured-ness into her life...I mean, Olivia Palermo is apparently a pretty well-known New York socialite who was basically cast on the show to be Whitney's co-worker, and Whitney met Jay, her Australian musician love interest, on camera and had to kind of ask him if it was ok to have their relationship chronicled on reality TV. Which makes me kind of wonder if he really likes her or if he just wants to be on TV?

11. Big Love. Hm, I haven't finished watching the last season of this show either, and honestly sometimes all the stuff with Roman and Alby and such loses my interest but at this point I'm basically invested in the characters so I will probably keep up.

12. Reaper. Does anyone remember this show? I thought it kind of grew into its own towards the end of its first season and I'm glad it's coming back.

Plus new season of The Amazing Race, Masterpiece Classic, and all the other shows I watched this fall...my DVR is going to be super busy and thank goodness for hulu.com and other online streaming!

Friday Night Lights back on track?

I'd really been kind of disappointed with Friday Night Lights this season so far. A lot of the storylines were just so cliched and predictable, and I felt like they were cramming too much into each episode while at the same time dragging things out for too long. I really hated the Landry/Tyra murder plot, and I still don't understand why no one in the town seems to know about it. I really hate the Matt/Carlotta thing and I really hope that ends sooner rather than later. I don't know what the heck they're doing with Jason (who hasn't even been in the last two episodes), and even the Taylors have been all out of sorts.

And I'm totally surprising myself by saying this, but there kind of hasn't been enough football. I think one of the things I loved so much about last season was that there was this urgency and structure to the season that was geared towards winning the state championship. But this season there's hasn't been much of that at all. There have been snippets, with Smash's recruitment, and Santiago, and lately the Laribee team coming to share Dillon's field (another Degrassi parallel here, by the way), but as a whole, there hasn't been too much tying things together, and I think that's been a bit disappointing.

But last night's episode kind of proved to me that the show can still be amazing. It was a little strange not seeing so many characters at all in the episode (Landry, Tyra, Lyla, Buddy, and Matt were all almost completely absent), but I liked that we got to focus on just a few things. I'm so glad that Tim finally just went back home, and the way he and Billy made up was just so low-key and perfect. I'm so glad that the silly misunderstanding with Julie from last week was cleared up relatively quickly. I'm so glad Smash didn't end up doing something stupid. And I'm kind of glad that Shelly's gone and that the Taylors are kind of back to status quo.

And it's also the little moments that make an episode for me too. How funny was Lois honking the horn and waving at Tim while waiting for Julie to apologize? And Tami wearing the shirt that Shelly said was too tight for her? And how cute was the Coach with Gracie at the end?

Friday Night Lights leaving me a bit cold...

I know that every December is a hiatus month but with the strike and all it's been making me kind of extra sad hearing all the "[insert show here] will return with new episodes in the new year" announcements after shows...

So things I liked about our last new FNL for 2007:
- Everything with Jason. I'd been kind of unsure of where the writers were going with him, but I love him when he's around Herc, his scene with Lyla was really nice, and his date was hilarious. I'm glad he's moving out of his parents' house...and I'm glad that his parents are evidently supporting that decision.
- Everything with Riggins. That gymnastics scene cracked me up. Tim's one of those people who seems like they wouldn't care about anything except drinking but the way he lets himself really get into stuff like football and Powderpuff and girls' gymnastics is so funny. Also glad that the writers remembered that Coach Taylor is now the school's athletic coordinator.
- Everything with Buddy Garrity and Santiago. This storyline seems much more Season 1 to me because it's very football-centered, and about how football kind of has that power. I feel like we've really been missing that elsewhere.

And now for the things that I kind of hated:
- The wrap-up of the Landry/Tyra murder plot nightmare. I don't know, in a way I'm relieved that it's over, but the resolution was just...blah. The charges being dropped because of self-defense? I don't know a lot of about law but that doesn't seem exactly applicable. They filmed it in a way that made it seem kind of questionable and I don't know how Landry could have gotten off that easy. Plus what about his dad destroying evidence? I think this storyline has allowed the actors involved to give some really outstanding performances but I still hated it. I want funny Landry back. I want sassy, confident Tyra back.
- The Gracie christening storyline. I really liked that Coach and Mrs. Taylor were such smart parents last year, to both Julie and the other kids in school. But I feel there's been almost none of that this season...I get that the writers want to shake things up and all but Tami's been pretty annoying and Coach has been kind of a doormat. I didn't think that the family getting back to normal was all that convincing but I hope that it's true.
- Matt and Carlotta. Ugh. I hate when shows portray couples as being cute THAT AREN'T CUTE.

You know, I think I've finally realized what it is about this season that just seems off to me. Dillon doesn't feel like a small town anymore. I thought during the first season they did a pretty excellent job keeping all the storylines and characters tied together...a lot of times through football. But this season it seems like a lot of the characters are just sitting in their own little worlds. I was reading through the thread for this episode on TWOP and one of the posts really hit the nail on the head. Like, why does no one else in the town seem to know or care about Landry and the murder? Why hasn't Billy come looking for Tim? Why wouldn't Tim at least talk to Jason or Lyla about his housing situation? Why hasn't Lyla been continuing to help Santiago? Why haven't we seen the town react at all to the fact that the Panthers' defense has been apparently been sucking?

FNL has always been really good about packing a lot into an hour, but I feel like I'd be totally okay with them scaling back a little if they could make the episodes a little more cohesive. I know there are a lot of characters to deal with, but there were no less than 6 separate storylines going on in this episode, with hardly any crossover...

blog may seem abandoned, but we're still watching tv... ;)

... at least until the shows start running out of episodes.

I'm probably in the minority, but I'm kinda glad this writers' strike is going on because it means I have a chance to catch up on all my shows. I'm still a few episodes behind, but here's what I'm still watching...

Every week:
* Heroes
* Chuck
* How I Met Your Mother
* Samantha Who?
* House
* Gossip Girl
* Pushing Daisies
* Private Practice
* Project Runway
* Grey's Anatomy
* October Road

Sometimes:
* Shark
* Dirty Sexy Money
* Las Vegas
* The Unit
* Numb3rs
* Friday Night Lights

Playing catch-up

I know, I know, I've been a bit delinquent with the blogging lately. So here's some random stuff on the shows I've been watching:

Gossip Girl: My favorite new show of this season, hands down. And I'm not afraid to admit it. New York Magazine loves it too, and their weekly recaps are totally hilarious. I'm kind of disappointed in what they did with the Vanessa character though. I might be completely making this up but in the books I thought she was a bit more...dark and sullen and edgy. The TV Vanessa is positively sunny, and she's not different enough from Serena to really be a good alternative for Dan. And the way they've set up Dan and Serena to be the like "it" couple for the series...I'm kind of not sure what she's even doing there besides giving random sage advice to Jenny. Oh well.

Friday Night Lights: I'm so glad Coach Taylor's back in Dillon. I thought the first couple of episodes of the season were just kind of too depressing but they've returned to more of a balance. I'm kind of meh on the whole Landry storyline...both Jesse Plemmons and Glenn Morshower are acting the hell out of their roles but I liked Landry better when he was the comic relief. And I'm sort of meh on him being on the football team...the episode where he saved the game and everyone was chanting his name was a bit much for me. I am glad that Julie has gotten over her heinous rebellious stage and apologized to Matt. But I'm also glad that Matt hasn't given into her. That new cheerleader is so just a random rebound though. Loved Smash inviting Riggins over for dinner, though I kind of wished we got some wisdom from Mama Smash. I don't really know what they're doing with Jason though...he keeps diving into things that he thinks will give his life meaning: first quad rugby, then coaching, but I guess he's still looking for something else. I did kind of like him as a coach though...

Ugly Betty: Soo....as much as I like Henry, all the Betty and Henry angst is getting kind of boring, and I almost want him to just go away so that Betty can get over him. I mean, that whole Wicked episode was kind of just terrible. (I'm actually still waiting to see Wicked on Broadway but I really didn't need to watch all those clips of the show.) Otherwise though, the show is still pretty awesome. I LOVE Marc and Cliff! It's just so cute and sweet and I'm just eating it up. And Victoria Beckham was actually pretty funny in this past week's episode. Oh, and did anyone else flash back to Caleb Nichol when Bradford keeled over at the altar??

The Office: I know that Michael's antics are kind of like the basis for this show, but I have to say that it's almost always the other stuff that I enjoy more. Sometimes the stuff that he and Dwight do is just so preposterous and stupid that I don't find it terribly funny. That said, I really liked the little tag at the end of this past week's episode where Michael and Jim have that really normal conversation. It was really refreshing to see that Michael's not insane all the time, and it was still funny.

Heroes: Finally got somewhere last week. And interestingly, Tim Kring, the show's executive producer has gone on record admitting that the beginning of the season pretty much sucked. Let's hope things get better from here on out. Although with the writers' strike thing there's a possibility of no new episodes after December...

Chuck: This show has really been growing on me these past couple of weeks. I don't know why nobody, including me, can stop comparing it to Reaper, but while Reaper's been suffering from bad pacing and repetitive storylines, Chuck's been getting more enjoyable by the week. Each episode has Chuck and Sarah and Casey going on some mission or whatnot, but the variety so far has been pretty great. Even the B-stories at the Buy More have been entertaining. This past week's episode we got to flash back a bit to when Chuck was at Stanford and how he got kicked out, which I really loved. I remember in the pilot I was having trouble buying Chuck as this socially inept person but now I totally see how he was really a pretty happy average guy at Stanford and it was him getting kicked out that just messed him up. I mean, I know that we've been told this all along but now I finally believe it.

The Amazing Race: It's back! I can't believe how long it took for me to get hooked onto this show...NINE seasons aired before I starting tuning in. This season has some interesting pairs, including those requisite bickering dating couples that you wonder how they ever decided that going on the race would be a good idea, and a pair of Goths who I wonder how long are going to keep up with their makeup. Fun times.

And finally, Project Runway Season 4 premieres this week! Am excited beyond words.

Sophomore slumping?

A bunch of the shows I'm watching are in their second seasons now, and that brings up the question, are they facing the sophomore slump? Here's my verdict so far:

Heroes: Definitely slumping. I think part of what was exciting about last season was that we were just meeting these characters in their separate worlds and there was this anticipation of their storylines converging and everyone meeting up. But now everyone's separated again and I don't get a sense of where things are going at all. Some of the stories still interest me, like Claire and her flying boy, West, and I'm actually liking Micah and his peppy cousin Monica. And thank goodness Mohinder and Matt and Molly in New York are actually doing something productive.

But Hiro? The thing with Kensei was amusing for maybe one episode but why are they dragging it out? And Peter in Ireland? Milo Ventimiglia does look kind of hot in all those shirtless scenes, but the whole memory loss thing is so not working for me. And I KNEW he wasn't going to want to open the box. Stupid Peter. And finally, our two new heroes, Maya and Alejandro...after watching them on the run for three episodes and having basically nothing happen to make us want to care about them, they run into Sylar. Whom, by the way, I despise. Yeah, he's the bad guy and I'm supposed to hate him, but bad guys should be entertaining to watch in some respect, and for me, he's just not. I don't want to watch him. I DON'T.

So...yeah. I mean, even last season I didn't think Heroes was as great as people hyped it up to be, but it more than held my attention. So far this season I've just been kind of bored. The promos are hyping Kristen Bell joining the cast in next week's episode but I don't know that I'm necessarily excited about that. Obviously I was a huge fan of Veronica Mars but I get the feeling her character is one of those smartass sarcastic chicks that I usually find kind of grating. We'll see...

Friday Night Lights: Umm...I hate to say this, but I'm worried. Things just aren't right with Coach Taylor not in Dillon with the Panthers. I know that this shakeup with pretty much every character is intentional but I can't say that I've been really enjoying it. I'm especially not enjoying the fracturing of what last season was one of the best families on the TV (the Taylors) and the end of my favorite couple from last season, Matt and Julie. I mean, when the scenes I enjoy the most involve Buddy Garrity of all people, something's got to be wrong. It looks like Eric will be back in Dillon pretty soon, but he's going to have an uphill battle getting things back to normal both at home and on the field.

Let's start with Julie. In my review of the premiere, I said that I was kind of okay with her and Matt breaking up and exploring other things, but I didn't want them to make her too unlikeable. But it's happened. I mean, even outside of her love life, she's just being HORRIBLE to her mother. Last night when she told Tami "your baby's crying" I pretty much wanted to kill her. And even though Tami slapping her was probably a little over the line, I'm kind of glad she did. I really hope this little rebellious stage of Julie's is going over soon because if it keeps going then she's not even deserve to have Matt back (assuming that's the plan...which I suppose it might not be). Although I don't know about Matt either now. I thought it was so cute how he was apologizing to Coach about the breakup when none of it was really his fault and Coach didn't even know about it, but then I'm really afraid of where they're going with him and Carlotta. What is up with these Dillon Panthers and older women??

I mean, it's not all bad. I was worried about the Landry-Tyra thing but oddly enough that's really been the least of the show's problems. I liked how Landry's father reacted in this week's episode. I thought he was going to confront Landry in some cliched TV parent way but instead he goes to see Tyra and asks why she's into his son. (BTW, Glenn Morshower aka Agent Pierce from 24, is so the perfect casting for Landry's dad...LOVE him!) Somehow I'm actually finding the Landry/Tyra dynamic to be pretty believable, but I kind of miss the old goofy Landry.

I don't know, I'm hoping that once Coach Taylor is back with the Panthers things will seem more right again, but that really remains to be seen. I want so badly for the show to continuing being as awesome as it was last season, but maybe my expectations are a little too high?

Ugly Betty: Definitely NOT slumping. I really consistently enjoyed this show last season although I never really blogged about it. But this season so far has just been AWESOME. There was a bit too much melodrama in the first episode for my taste but things since then have been back to all crazy wacky fun. This week's episode had a ton of incredible guest stars, including my favorite SpyDaddy Victor Garber as Betty's snobby writing teacher, John Cho as Henry's fellow accountant, and James Van Der Beek as one of Mode's top advertisers. Yes, James Van Der Beek. As you may know, I have this bizarre love/hate thing with Dawson's Creek but the sight of Dawson Leery himself cracked me up.

Also beyond awesome this season is Justin. First he's all fashion elf-y at Mode, then he asks Daniel to play basketball with him (totally classic), and now he's trying to be Santos, complete with sullen attitude, beer, and making out with a Queens girl! (I'm actually from Queens, but you can't really get offended by the stereotypes on this show.) And...Ugly Willy! And Alexis waking up from the coma not knowing she's a woman now! And Amanda and Marc! And Henry! I LOVE THIS SHOW!

Friday Night Lights...now on Fridays!

I actually watched this episode a week ago on Yahoo!TV but I decided to hold off on blogging about it until it actually aired so I could go more into detail about some of the stuff that happened...if you've watched the show then you probably know what I'm referring to by this point. But I'll get to that a little later.

It's weird, I absolutely loved the show last season and was thrilled when it was renewed but at the same time, I felt like last season's story was so nicely self-contained with a nice beginning, middle, and end...and I was strangely unprepared to be dropped into it all again, especially since what, 8 months have passed, and things are definitely not as we left them.

Coach Taylor has indeed been living and working in Austin, and I don't know, in the finale they managed to convince me that it was going to somehow be okay but now it just seems like a colossally bad situation. I mean, being away for weeks at a time pretty much the whole time your wife is pregnant? And then with a newborn? I think they'll be dealing with it all a bit more in the upcoming episodes but I wonder how a good resolution can come of it all. Obviously the sentimental solution would be to have Coach Taylor back with the Panthers, that's how we grew to love him after all, but in terms of his character, that just seems like it would be a step down. I hope the writers haven't dug themselves into a hole here.

Also a lot unhappier than we last left them are Matt and Julie. Now, I'm not going to lie, I LOVED Matt and Julie together and would prefer that they be kind of left alone but I realize that's not realistic. And I sort of get why Julie's acting out...they are only 16 after all. It's the whole perfect couple syndrome. She was lucky enough to have kind of the perfect first high school relationship but she doesn't really want that to be IT for the rest of her life. I'm guessing they're going to be breaking up and seeing other people for awhile, but I really do hope they end up together in the long run. And that their characters don't become too unlikable in the process. Julie was being pretty insufferable this episode. (Sigh, the shipper in me is missing all the cute Matt/Julie scenes from last season...good thing I now have the DVDs so I can go back and be nostalgic.)

In other news, Lyla seems to have turned into one of those annoying Christians who's always telling everybody that they need to be saved. Now, I'm a Christian, but I can't stand people who act like that, and I don't know, maybe it's the acting, but it definitely strikes me as being pretty fake. I was starting to maybe like Lyla a little bit at the end of last season but now we're back at square one. Or square minus one.

Okay, so finally we get to Landry and Tyra. As unlikely as they were and still are, I was happy to see that they stayed friends, and it totally made me laugh that after 8 months, Landry was STILL trying to make his first move. But man, having her attacker come back? And Landry accidentally killing him? And dumping the body? This just seems like it's out of another world. This makes me worried. I do have faith in the writers to take what seems like a cliched bad teen movie plot and elevate it but I hope I'm not going to wish they never went there in the first place.

2007 Emmy nominations - surprisingly not horrible!

Sooo...every year I claim to not care about the Emmys but every year I pay attention to them anyway. This year, though, they changed the whole nomination process in hopes of fixing the problem of having all the same shows nominated every year and color me surprised but it kind of worked!

The awesome:

• Jenna Fischer for Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series!!!
  
• Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series - Jeremy Piven, Kevin Dillon, Neil Patrick Harris, Rainn Wilson?! This is so the dream category!!!

The good:

• Nods for Sally Field and Rachel Griffiths on Brothers & Sisters.
  
• Writing and directing nods for Battlestar Galactica (and some other technical ones). Nothing in acting, but we'll take whatever we can get.
  
• Top Chef and Project Runway face off in the Reality Competition category!
  
• Tons of nods for Jane Eyre, which I totally fell in love with earlier this year.
  
• Haha, Mia Michaels and Wade Robson both got nominations for Best Choreography on So You Think You Can Dance!
  
• A bunch of nice Ugly Betty nominations. I wasn't really surprised by this though, the show is pretty Emmy-friendly.
  
• Everything Comes Down to Poo and Guy Love from the Scrubs muscial both nominated for Original Music and Lyrics

The bad:

• Grey's Anatomy for Drama Series, really? Even people I know who love the show agree that this season was pretty bad.
  
• At least Friday Night Lights got a directing nomination, but that's all. Sigh.

The weird:

• What is up with all the love for Boston Legal? I honestly didn't even know it was still on and people were actually watching it. And I mean really, Boston Legal over Friday Night Lights???
  
• Studio 60 got a few nominations as well. I mean, truthfully I did like the pilot but uh, talk about a show that lost steam.
  
• Ugly Betty for Outstanding Main Title Design. Um, if I'm not mistaken, don't they not have main titles? They just follow up an unattractive shot of Betty with a yellow screen and UGLY BETTY in huge caps. I mean, yes, it's extremely effective, but didn't seem like it was really a lot of work...

Upfronts -- Another take

I think what surprised me most about this year's upfronts were how few returning shows I'm going to be sticking with this fall. There's only Brothers & Sisters, How I Met Your Mother, Heroes, Ugly Betty, the Office, Scrubs, Beauty and the Geek, and Friday Night Lights. There are plenty of new shows, though, and it seems that there are two trends: sci-fi twists, and glamorous rich people...

NBC

• So glad Friday Night Lights is renewed, but are they really putting it on Friday? I know, it's kind of fitting because of the title of the show, but Friday at 10PM? Not sure how that's going to work out.


• Chuck sounds like Jake 2.0, so I might like it.

ABC

• SO EXCITED for Pushing Daisies. I recently watched the full Wonderfalls series on DVD and I'm a huge huge fan of Bryan Fuller and I'm so happy to see Lee Pace back on TV. I'm still kind of worried though, because it really seemed like it could be too quirky for network TV.


• I'll probably check out Big Shots because Michael Vartan is in it, haha.


• Still can't really believe that they're actually doing the Cavemen show.


• Dirty Sexy Money might end up being a guilty pleasure?

CBS

• Really really surprised and pretty upset that Jericho was cancelled. More on that later though.


• Um, Moonlight is Angel. Is it not?

FOX

• New Amsterdam seems to be another version of Angel too. What the heck?


• Kitchen Nightmares. Gordon Ramsay. I am so there!


• The Search for the Next Great American Band. This seems to be an extension of American Idol, but is this for rock bands or just like singing groups? I'd much rather see Rock Star come back...


• The Return of Jezebel James, scheduled for mid-season. Amy Sherman-Palladino, Parker Posey, and Lauren Ambrose? Kind of sounds like the dream team, but early reports say that it was a bit disappointing. Will definitely check it out anyway though.

CW

• Pretty relieved that Veronica Mars was cancelled, because all the talk about the show coming back in all sort of different incarnations was just ridiculous and worrisome. I'm pretty eh about the state of the show right now, considering how much I LOVED the show first season. But more about that later with what's now apparently the series finale.


• Yeah, like Mira, I will not be able to resist Gossip Girl. Yes, I read some of the books. Yes, they're trashy. Yes, I'm too old for it. But yes, I will watch it. I also hear that Kristen Bell will be narrating the show as Gossip Girl. She's one of the few actors that I can take hearing voiceovers from, so that's a good sign.


• Life is Wild sounds like it's going to crash and burn like Runaway.


• Reaper could be good. Is this the return to teen genre TV that I've been waiting for?

2007 upfronts

Since Jenn's not around to blog about the Upfronts, here is my opinion of it in short:

NBC

• Yay for giving Zach Braff & co. the opportunity to end Scrubs right.
• Yay for giving Friday Night Lights another season, but they deserve a full one, not just 13 episodes!
• Yay for another season of Heroes, though that is no surprise.
• Boo for canceling The Black Donnelly's and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (though I know that perhaps I'm one of the few people that LOVED that show).
• Unsure what I think of Las Vegas without James Caan and with Tom Selleck instead, but we'll find out next year!
• None of the new shows particularly excite me. So... meh, we'll see.
  

ABC

• No surprise on the renewals of Ugly Betty (which I still need to catch up on), or Grey's Anatomy.
• Yay for them giving October Road one more shot. I really liked it, but it might be just cuz I like Jake from One Tree Hill.
• It's cool that the Lost creators decided to set a deadline for the show. But really, do they need 5 more years? I guess, I won't be starting that show anytime soon...
  
• Surprisingly I'm excited about the Grey's spin-off, Private Practice.
• So what happened to that Traveler show?
  

CBS

• Not surprised by How I Met Your Mother's renewal, but yay!
• Glad to see NCIS, Numb3rs, and Shark will be back.
• May give Cane and maybe Kid Nation a try.
  
• Sad but not surprised to see The Class is gone.

Fox

• Not surprised but glad to see House back.
• Kinda want Prison Break to be over already. Okay, okay, I like the show, it's just inane that he escaped prison in Season 1, he continued to escape prison in Season 2, and now he's captured and is going back to prison.
• Amy Sherman-Palladino making a new show? Yeah, I'm there. The Return of Jezebel James(working title apparently) will get at least a few tries by me.
• Ending The O.C. this past year was the smartest thing Fox could've ever done!

The CW

• One Tree Hill needs to go.
  
• Yay for FINALLY ending Seventh Heaven and Gilmore Girls.
  
• Boo for completely screwing up what WAS a great show (Veronica Mars) by going so back and forth on how many episodes it was getting this year. And now by not making a decision on whether it's getting renewed. UGH. I don't think I will be buying Season 3.
• I probably will not be able to keep myself from watching Gossip Girl, unfortunately.

Has anyone noticed the number of shows about three or four friends of the same gender who bond together to take on the world? Very Sex and the City.

• Lipstick Jungle(NBC)
• Bigshots(ABC)
  
• Carpoolers(ABC)
• Cashmere Mafia(ABC)
• Cavemen(ABC)
• Women's Murder Club(ABC)

Oh wait, it looks like it's mostly an ABC trend!

Friday Night Lights better get renewed

Some of my past and present unpopular opinions include:
1. I hate Grey's Anatomy.
2. I like Cally on Battlestar Galactica.
3. I've never thought Family Guy, the Simpsons, or South Park were particularly funny.
4. I don't like sketch comedy.

And now I can add to that list...

5. I was sort of disappointed in last night's Friday Night Lights season finale.

Don't get me wrong, it had a ton of really amazing moments, and seriously, I think the Panthers are like the only sports team that I've EVER rooted for, but somehow the episode just seemed weirdly anti-climactic to me. I didn't really like that they started off the game so badly and then ended up winning. It did allow for the Coach to give that really awesome locker room speech at half-time, but to me, it just seemed so contrived, especially because I knew, I KNEW, that they were going end up winning. And watching the last play for me for one of the rare instances where I was intensely aware that this was just a TV show and that this was just acting. It just wasn't impressive to me, because they WROTE it that way. I know I'm being ridiculous, but for some reason I just got taken out of it all.

I mean, now that I think about it, the game was really the only deflating part of the episode for me. Everything else was wonderful. I absolutely loved the scenes when the team first arrives at the stadium, especially when they see their names in the locker room. Pure joy! And although I'm not a fan of the unexpected pregnancy storylines, Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler really acted the hell out of those scenes. They are like my official model for the perfect marriage. Jason's showing signs that he'll make a really good coach someday, and it doesn't feel forced at all. I loved that they remembered to have his parents at the game...this was supposed to be his championship, and in the end, it kind of was. Of course, Landry brings the laughs, how funny was it that he ended up driving FIVE women to Dallas?? I know I always rag on Lyla, but the scene where she and Tyra finally had it out was perfect and a long time coming. Also, even though Matt and Julie are my favorite new couple this season, I'm glad that they haven't been in the forefront these past couple of episodes. Their scenes were minimal and perfect. And speaking of Matt...he's really grown up. I feel an almost maternal pride towards him (which is totally ridiculous because Zach Gilford is older than me). And man, I LOVE MAMA SMASH. She steals every scene she's in. Man, I'm still missing a ton of stuff, it's amazing how they pack so much into every episode without making it feel rushed or crowded.

But the game...the game was the centerpiece of the whole episode and it just didn't pack as much emotional wallup for me as the game in the pilot or in the Mud Bowl episode...

So the season ends on a sort of cliffhanger, in more ways than one. The show isn't definitely renewed for next season, although things are looking hopeful, and there was no real decision on whether the Taylors, all or some of them, would be staying in Dillon. But it's not one of those rip-your-hair out cliffhangers, and in the horrible case that the show doesn't get renewed, at least we got to experience this one almost transcendent season. I'll be first in line to buy the DVD set.

I haven't mentioned the music on this show before, but it's definitely an integral part of the show. Explosions in the Sky is the instrumental group (from Texas to boot) that provides the theme music and other bits of score throughout the series. (They also did the movie's soundtrack). I'm not sure it's music I'd really listen to on its own, especially now that I will forever associate their sound with the show, but it's good stuff.