My favorites from 2008

Was aiming for 5 in each category but it didn't exactly work out...

TV (scripted):
1. Gossip Girl
2. 30 Rock
3. Battlestar Galactica
4. Mad Men
5. Gavin & Stacey
6. Greek
7. Skins
8. The Big Bang Theory
9. Cranford
10. Kyle XY

TV (reality):
1. So You Think You Can Dance
2. Top Chef
3. The Amazing Race
4. Project Runway
5. Olympic gymnastics and swimming!

Songs (released in 2008)
1. Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper
2. TV on the Radio - DLZ
3. MGMT - Time to Pretend
4. The Veronicas - Untouched
5. M83 - Graveyard Girl

Bands I started liking this year (somewhat late):
1. Sigur Ros
2. Mogwai
3. Kings of Leon

Books I read:
1. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
2. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
3. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Movies:
1. Slumdog Millionaire
2. The Dark Knight
3. Wall-E

There are way too many conveniently rich guys on TV

Something I've been noticing for years: there are way too many convenient wealthy nice guys on TV that the supposedly "average" girls get to date and get ridiculous perks and such from. But of course, the money isn't why they fall in love with them, it's just, like...convenient! Hmph, as if I were only so lucky. Some examples:

1. Will on Privileged. He gets pastrami and a chestnut guy flown into Florida from New York City and installs a massive Christmas tree on the lawn.
2. Bobby on My Boys. He upgrades PJ to first class on the flight to Italy, and his family has a villa there. A villa!
3. Junior on Wildfire. Kris from juvie ends up marrying the richest guy in the horse world. Of course.
4. Logan on Gilmore Girls. Don't even get me started on the whole Life and Death Brigade and how he gets the perfect gown for Rory because "he has an eye for sizes."
5. Ty on 90210. Not that he was really a nice guy, but our little Kansas Annie gets flown up to San Francisco practically the first week she's in California. I mean, come on!

Oh, and this isn't TV, but Edward from Twilight? Sure, the story's epic true love or whatever, but let's not forget this one detail: the Cullens are LOADED.

The Amazing Race: who knew marching was "musically and art-based"?

Even if you don't watch the Amazing Race, you must watch this video clip. This team, Dan and Andrew, are frat boys from Arizona who have been the most incredibly dumb and blundering and joyless team ever but yet they've managed to squeak out not last week after week. This week they once against survived thanks to it being a non-elimination leg but they had the hardest time with a seemingly easy task with HILARIOUS results. I could not stop laughing. And apparently, neither could the normally stoic Russian soldiers!

Oh, what's occuring?

A rundown of my TV and pop-culture consuming as of late.

!. The title of this post is a reference to the really great British romantic comedy sitcom, Gavin and Stacey, now airing on BBC America. I feel kind of bad that I haven't gotten around to blogging about it until now, but it's not my blogs have some great influence over the TV viewers of the world anyway. I really do love this show though! It's the story of a young couple (yes, named Gavin and Stacey) as they meet, fall in love, get engaged and get married. The best part of the show is really the supporting players, though, including Nessa, Stacey's best friend, whose catchphrase is "what's occurring?" There's also Smithy, Gavin's best friend, Gavin's parents, and Stacey's mom and uncle, all of whom are hilarious in their own way. There have been two seasons and the second is airing right now. Not sure if there'll be a third, though I believe a Christmas special will be airing in the UK soon!

2. The word is that ABC has canceled Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone, and Dirty Sexy Money. It's not entirely surprising...Pushing Daisies was a little too quirky for me so it was definitely too much for network TV, and Eli Stone and Dirty Sexy Money never really caught steam. I am glad that the writers' strike enabled all of them to get another half-season, but I'm definitely disappointed that they probably won't get to wrap up much storyline. It's pretty terrible that three generally critically acclaimed shows like these get axed while things like Knight Rider, Kath & Kim, and 90210 are going to keep going...

3. Speaking of 90210, I'm still watching it despite how really terrible it is. The writing is just so...BAD. The storylines have all been predictable, dialogue is horrendous, and the acting isn't much better. Annie is not interesting or likable enough to be the lead, and the original flavor characters like Kelly and Brenda aren't being given anything good to do either. And yet I keep watching...

4. There is a good show on the CW on Tuesday nights though: Privileged. I'm not sure how it's doing in the ratings, but I think additional scripts were ordered so hopefully it'll stick around for a little while. The show centers around Megan, a recent Yale graduate who returns home to South Florida to become the live-in tutor to twins Rose and Sage, who are the granddaughters of Laurel, a wealthy cosmetic mogul. Megan is played wonderfully by Joanna Garcia...she's smart and optimistic and a little dorky, but she's not perfect. She has strained relationships with her father and sister, and is sometimes too wrapped up in her own life to realize what's going on with her friends. I do love the twins too -- Rose is played by Lucy Hale, who I found annoying in Bionic Woman and the second Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants but I find really sweet here, and Sage, who's the taller, bitchier twin has really been growing on me. Michael Cassidy finally gets to play the good guy as Megan's best friend from childhood, Charlie, and there's Marco, the house chef, who's hilarious as the gay BFF type.

5. I've fallen behind with Terminator, Heroes, and Fringe, for different reasons. I do like Terminator, but it's sometimes just a little too like angsty and serious and I'm not that interested in whatever Ellison and Catherine Weaver are doing. Heroes just sucks and I doubt I'll ever get back into it, but I haven't quite cut the cord yet. And Fringe...the gore every week has turned me off a bit and the "Pattern" thing worries me because it seems to have the potential to spiral off into some Rambaldi type thing. (Yes, I will always begrudge J.J. Abrams for screwing up Alias.)

6. My favorite shows this season so far: Gossip Girl, Top Chef, 30 Rock, and the Amazing Race.

7. Shows I'm looking forward to in 2009: Battlestar Galactica (final season), Scrubs, Kyle XY, and Joss Whedon's Dollhouse (though it's been doomed to a Friday night timeslot). Oh, and 24, too, I guess, though I didn't finish watching the last season and I'm a little miffed over the idea of Tony returning from the dead to be a bad guy. Can't they leave well enough alone?

8. I feel like I should comment on all the hoopla surrounding the Twilight movie. I originally wanted to see it but after reading some reviews and some audience reactions I think I'm going to pass and wait to see it on DVD. It's weird, I totally admit to have been sucked in by the books, but I really have a lot of problems with the series and I find it kind of bizarre that so many people are so ga-ga over it. (See my original reviews of Twilight/New Moon and Breaking Dawn. Also this article on Salon says a lot of what I was trying to.) But I'm sure it's going to make a killing at the box office anyway.

Top Chef in the big city

So wow, Stylista went down the tubes incredibly fast. There's really no one tolerable left in the competition, and honestly, I can't believe how catty everyone is. I've watched a ton of reality shows but I can't remember one where all the contestants were constantly sitting around openly attacking each other and saying why everyone else basically sucks. Perhaps this is what happens when all the contestants are in their twenties and think they're smarter than everyone else?

Anyway, thankfully the creme de la creme of reality competition shows, Top Chef, is back. And this time they're finally in New York, my hometown!

Eliminating someone right off the bat in the Quickfire was a surprise but they did get to actually cook something and the bottom two made SALADS. Yes, it's 20 minutes, but have they not watched the show? Salads do not win challenges! It's funny how the weakest emerge right away though. Lauren's salad was especially lame--what, greens with bacon and balsamic? What skill or creativity did that require? And no surprise, Patrick gets himself eliminated later in the episode. It's interesting to note that these two were the youngest cheftestants, 21 and 24. I wonder why Patrick especially was cast...they keep saying that the caliber of the chefs has only been increasing but then they pick a culinary student? Oh, well, they're gone.

I'm glad that they brought back the head-to-head format from last year for the elimination challenge. Sixteen people is a lot to introduce in an hour and I still don't remember a lot of names but the format helps. I was looking at the results from last season and the winners of the matchups were pretty telling -- Stephanie, Richard, Lisa, Antonia, and Dale were all winners. This time, the winners were Stefan, Eugene, Leah, Hosea, Jamie, Jeff, and Daniel. Stefan's obviously distinguished himself as a frontrunner, winning both challenges. He's irritatingly overconfident but at least seems to have the talent the back it up. Eugene's my early favorite, he's scrappy and worked his way up from being a dishwasher, and I thought it was really smart how he tasted some prepared food at the market to try and recreate since he wasn't familiar with the cuisine. Leah rebounded nicely from the Quickfire, though she did get lucky and was assigned her own cuisine. Hosea seemed to impress Tom and he had some nice plating, and Jamie successfully pulled off the ever-popular deconstruction trick.

I love that the show has enough credibility to attract people like Jean Georges to be guest judges (his sniffing the dishes kind of cracked me up). I'm expecting a lot of big names this season since so many live in New York. And exploring all the different ethnic neighborhoods was fun, though I was unaware that Jamaica is actually a hub of Jamaican food, and where's Little India? I thought Italian, Latin, and Chinese were a little obvious but amazingly a lot of the chefs had trouble with those...

Stylista: predictably addicting

We all know that I'm pretty much powerless when it comes to reality TV shows, so it's no surprise that I was kind of looking forward to Stylista. It's from the producers of America's Next Top Model and seems to be an attempt to cash in on the popularity of The Devil Wears Prada...though I guess it's been kind of a long time since then. The show is a competition to become an associate editor for Elle magazine and features Anne Slowey, as the Miranda Priestley-type personality of the magazine. She was previously the guest judge on the Sasha Cohen figure skating costume episode of Project Runway season 2, in which she kept saying things were "vulgar" but I didn't really get the impression she was all that icy or bitchy. And in the premiere episode it definitely felt like she was trying pretty hard to act that way. I'm not even sure what her title is at Elle...is she that important?

Anyway, the contestants are expectedly an interesting bunch. Of note were Megan, the entitled and stuck up mean girl; Kate, Megan's victim who earns the nickname "Boobs" and cries; William, skinny boy with a British accent that might be a little fake; Danielle, who's not model-thin like the rest of the girls; and Ashlie, who won the first challenge and actually seems smart.

The first challenge was kind of ridiculous though...it involved putting together a breakfast for Anne Slowey. But it was really just whether or not they knew what Anne Slowey likes to eat, which, according to this food diary she did for New York magazine once, is basically vitamins, lattes, green tea, water, and the occasional bite of actual food. None of them appeared to have read that article.

The second challenge was shopping for work-appropriate outfits and putting together a contributors page. This was a bit more interesting, especially the part where Joe Zee, Elle's creative director, critiques their personal style. I was kind of appalled at what a terrible job most of the teams did with their pages though...one did not follow directions at all and another had a seriously terrible layout. I'm not entirely sure what the responsibilities of an editor are though, so hopefully they'll get more into that in the coming weeks.

Oh, and the winner gets a year-long fashion allowance from H&M. Does that strike anyone else as being a bit...cheap?

How I Met Your Mother...eventually

So I guess it's official: Stella's not the mother.

I can't say I'm that surprised...I thought this season was definitely being written to point towards her not being the one. I mean, I'm not sure if it was intentional, or more just a result of Sarah Chalke's availability, but her absence in a lot of the episodes felt significant. Yeah, she had a child and lived in New Jersey, but I imagine Ted's eventual wife to be more someone who fits in with his gang and hangs out with them at MacLaren's. While I really liked Sarah Chalke and thought Ted and Stella were good together in a way, it just didn't feel completely right.

What I was surprised at though, was how it ended. I mean, I figured they wouldn't actually end up getting married randomly in the middle of the season, but I never expected that Stella would be the one to realize she was still in love with her ex and all but leave Ted at the altar. I did kind of love Robin's speech to Ted though...it was what should have gone in her intervention letter. And while not all of it was true (I don't see why Ted gaining a stepdaughter and moving to New Jersey would be "not him"), he was definitely rushing into it all. I don't think it necessarily meant that Robin was still in love with him though. I don't want to go down that road again, especially not with the Barney-Robin situation still developing.

You know, some people have been saying that at this point they don't necessarily care about when or even if we'll actually meet the mother. And while I kind of see their point that the show has become so much more than that, I do still want to meet the mother. And I don't want it to just be like a glimpse in the last episode. Admittedly Ted is often the least interesting character on the show, but I want to see the process in which he figures out that she's the one, whoever she is. I know that it's hard to plan these things in the American TV world of not knowing when the series is going to end but honestly, I don't know how much longer I want to wait! And it's not like once they introduce the mother the show will be over. Lily and Marshall were together from the very beginning and they still had story to tell.

I do wonder where things are going to go from here now though...I imagine Ted will be out of the dating game for a little while at least, so perhaps we'll get some more progress on the Barney-Robin front!

Greek still rocks

I really should post on Greek more because it's definitely been one of my favorite shows this season so far. It's just really come into its own, with well-developed characters and really sharp, funny writing, and plenty of current pop culture references that make these kids actually seem normal. Casey and Ashleigh using code names from the Hills kind of cracked me up this week, especially since LC herself will apparently be appearing as herself in the finale.

One thing that I'm kind of not so happy about though, is how Evan and Frannie have turned into the terrible twosome of evil. They really do bring out the worst in eachother and it's not exactly unbelievable but given what we know they've been like in the past, it's maybe a little sad. I think Evan's behavior lately is somewhat organic...he's realizing that because of who he is, he can basically do what he wants and get other people to do what he wants too. I kind of wish we'd see Evan go back to the genuinely good guy we saw in the freshman year flashback episode though. I'm not entirely sure what part, if any, Casey has to do with this though. I think Casey would be good for Evan, but I don't think the reverse is necessarily true.

As for Frannie...I guess we needed a villain in the house now that Rebecca is somewhat reformed/disgraced, but I'm not always clear on her motives. Obviously we've seen her be a bitch before, but I mean, was she only nice to Casey to get back into the house? Or was she that angry that Casey didn't want to be friends with her after she started dating Evan? I think I'd like to Evan dump her ass and she how she gets along with Evan encouraging her.

I do have to say that I'm glad Ashleigh won the presidency though. Not that Casey didn't deserve it, but what Rebecca said was right--she didn't run a very good campaign--and this is much more interesting and will save us from another year of Casey or Frannie undermining whoever did win. We all know what's going to happen now...at first Casey's going to be trying too hard to "help" Ashleigh but I think in the end they'll work it out. Hopefully they won't have Ashleigh totally suck and have to step down or something because I think her character deserves to have something go right for her too. I am interested to see how Rebecca's going to fit into all this, though.

On the fraternity side, I kind of feel like the boys have been more comic relief from all the girl drama going on. I do still wonder about Cappie and Casey, though. They just seem to have such a natural chemistry together. Although I did like Cappie and Rebecca when they were together. And I do like Casey and Max too...it's nice to see Casey date outside the Greek circle and Max's awkwardness is pretty hilarious. I was glad to see Jen K. return this week to bring some closure to Rusty, and I'm also liking Calvin's arc too. I'm not sure if he's going to regret breaking up with Michael though.

I just realized one of the things I like so much about this show is that the relationships are not cut and dry and all. A lot of shows kind of make it obvious which couples we're supposed to be rooting for but not on Greek...I'm as undecided as the characters!

Gossip Girl: Blair vs. Serena

I was glad that Blair and Serena made up at the end of this week's episode, if only to see the end of Queen S. Their rivalry is totally believable and it's never really going to be over but I found bitchy Serena to just be pretty unbearable, and it seems that no matter what happens, I'm always going to be Team Blair.

I'm not saying that her actions were at all condonable--and she generally ends up making things worse for herself along the way--but I get her. She says and does all those mean things to Serena because of her insecurities, and the reality of the situation that Serena does breeze through life getting things handed to her that she didn't even know she wanted. But Serena? She showed up at Yale purely to spite Blair, knowing full well that she wouldn't even have to try that hard to throw Blair off her game, at the school that's been her lifelong dream. I mean, while Blair bringing up Pete was pretty low, it's not like Serena even cared about Yale in the first place! And in the end, it was still Blair that ended up looking bad and Serena getting offered early admission. I'm glad that the show hasn't shied away from the fact that this is just how it is, and it's not just in Blair's head. I think they'll pretty much always have this between them, but it shouldn't stop them from being friends. The people you know the best are the ones you can hurt the most I guess?

This episode brought back some memories of when I was visiting colleges...I totally remember some kids getting out of limos at the admissions office when I visited Princeton. Were they Upper East Siders? Haha. I definitely did not have one-on-one interviews with deans though, and why the heck does Dan need all those recommendations? You don't have to declare a major on your application, and I doubt getting into the undergrad English department is that difficult.

I did think it was somewhat fitting that Dan and Nate are finally becoming friends because they're so similarly dumb and judgmental. Yet again Nate fails to recognize that Chuck was just trying to help him out. And did anyone else think that those Skull & Bones guys just tying Dan to a statue in his boxers was kind of...tame? I thought they would have something way worse planned.

In other news, Jenny is suddenly the most talented young fashion designer ever and gets to quit school. WTF? And doesn't home-schooling mean that Rufus has to spend so many hours with her every day anyway? And aren't there like limits to the number of hours she can work since she's underage? I'm glad that Rufus brought up the Professional Children's School at least, though in real life I think afterschool or weekend programs at FIT or Parsons or something should suffice...

Not very good new shows

In a way I'm kind of glad I didn't really like these shows...my DVR is busy enough as it is.

Eleventh Hour: I actually really like Rufus Sewell (from various movies, but mostly Dark City), but unfortunately this show is kind of terrible. It's yet another procedural but with more of a scientific, though not necessarily supernatural, bent. It seems there are only 2 regulars--Sewell as Dr. Jacob Hood, a biophysicist consultant with the FBI, and Marley Shelton as Rachel Young, his partner/bodyguard. I didn't find her very convincing. And the show's odd little attempts are humor are really just groan-inducing. As are some of the Hood's random explanations of scientific things. I mean, bar codes on milk cartons? Tweezers and grapes? Yeah. The X-files or even Fringe this is not.

Interestingly I think I watched a few episodes of the British version this is based off of. Patrick Stewart was the scientist and Ashley Jensen (from the British Office and Extras and Christina on Ugly Betty) was the agent. I remember thinking it was quite good, but I mean, it was Patrick Stewart. He's good in pretty much everything.

My Own Worst Enemy: Another show with an actor I really like. This time, it's Christian Slater, who I kind of love on the basis of Heathers alone really, even though that was almost 20 years ago. But sadly, he's not that good here. He's kind of playing two characters, a Jekyll and Hyde thing, but I didn't think there was enough of a difference between Edward and Henry. Christian Slater can't really help being...Christian Slater.

And the premise of the show wasn't explained very well. Edward is an international spy working for some organization and he volunteers to have a second, more average guy personality, Henry, created in his brain that doesn't know anything about him. Henry has a wife and two kids and travels for work, during which time Edward "wakes up" and takes over to perform his missions. Um, what exactly is the advantage of all this? Then things in his brain have gotten messed up, Henry finds out about Edward, and the two personalities are now switching off unpredictably. Chaos ensues, right? I guess it could be kind of Alias-ish, but I just thought it was pretty dumb and implausible.

The Mentalist: Kind of the same thing as Psych, which I watched a few episodes of but never really got into. Except here, Simon Baker is the master of observation who used to pretend to be a psychic but now is just working with the police whereas on Psych James Roday is the master of observation pretending to be a psychic to work with the police. But both are just procedural investigation shows which I've never been a fan of. Skip.