Category: TV (Page 374 of 595)

The Wire 5.1 – More with Less

January 6, 2008 /

The premiere of the fifth and final season of “The Wire” is finally upon us, and while it doesn’t look to be as good as last year, the show continues to trump just about everything you see on TV. The biggest problem with the first episode was that not a lot really happened. It served more as a building block for the next nine episodes than anything else, and while very few new ideas were presented, we now have a good idea where Ed Burns and David Simon are going with their plans to interject the media into their stories.

And since we’re on the subject, I might as well begin there. Simply put, I wasn’t very impressed with the Baltimore Sun scenes that dominated much of the second-half action last night, but I also wasn’t a very big proponent of the political subplot at the beginning of Year Four, either. There’s definitely a few things to like about the new setting – namely actor/director Clark Johnson as City Editor Gus Haynes – but I can’t imagine anything of real interest being drawn from the concept that the newspaper is in danger of being downsized. Whether that threat was just motivation for the writers to dig deeper into the city’s corruption or if it’ll play a bigger role later down the line remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s definitely important to the story.

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As for the rest of Baltimore, things are pretty much the same since we last left them. Bunk is still playing tricks on street thugs (how that kid ever fell for the photo copier “lie detector” is beyond me), McNulty and Co. are back on Marlo, Bubbles is still clean (and apparently working for The Sun selling papers), and Carcetti’s busy juggling the city budget between the schools and police department. This hasn’t made the new mayor a very popular man, either, as cops continue to work overtime without pay, and the Major Crimes detail is disbanded almost as quickly as it was formed.

There have been some changes, albeit minor ones. Carver is now a Sergeant (and in charge of the West district), Herc’s working as an investigator for a criminal DA, and Dukie’s taken off corner duties in order to play nanny to Michael’s younger brother. Oh yeah, and McNulty’s drinking again. As if you didn’t see that coming. Here’s hoping he doesn’t screw over Beadie in the process, because she was one of my favorite characters from season two. I’m also patiently awaiting the return of Omar, Cutty, Randy, Namond and the countless others I’m forgetting about, but with only 9 episodes remaining, I can’t imagine their absence going on for much longer.

External TV, The Wire, TV, TV Dramas

Friday Night Lights: “There Goes the Neighborhood”

January 6, 2008 /

Girls want to be with him and guys want to be him. Tim Riggins got a ton of screen time this week and it didn’t go to waste. He moved in with the Taylors and his initial flirtation with Shelly had me a little worried. A few more days under the same roof (and if Tami hadn’t said anything to her sister) and the two might have had a little tryst when no one was around. Given Shelly’s sauciness and his tendency to fall for older women, it was a serious possibility.

But Riggins can’t catch a break. He does the right thing by protecting Julie at the party, but I had a sick feeling when he was putting her to bed that someone was going to walk in and get the wrong idea. And that’s exactly what happened. Eric’s biggest fault is that he doesn’t listen. What he walked in on certainly looked bad, but he knows that Riggins is a good guy. Their clothes were all on and one look at the condition of his daughter would have confirmed Riggins’ story. But when Eric gets pissed, he just tells people to shut up and then walks away (or kicks them out).

It’s a shame because he had a sort of “son that I never had” vibe going with Riggins. First, he says he likes having Tim around because it “evens up the gender teams” and then the two are playing ping-pong at 5 AM. It will be interesting to see if/how this relationship is repaired. Riggins could use a strong father figure and Eric fits the bill.

The tornado scene was pretty cool and Tim’s actions in the store (in protecting Julie) certainly fueled her little crush. Those two are in two completely different worlds, so a potential relationship would be a bad, bad idea.

Speaking of relationships, what the freck is Tyra thinking? Landry risked his future to protect her, and she drops him seconds later so that she can date the sleazy quarterback from a rival school? It’s one thing to take some “time off,” but to immediately date the enemy is just insane. Her confession at the dance that he makes her “feel too much” spoke volumes, but Tyra is a mature, intelligent young woman. It never should have gotten to that point.

I thought the whole storyline about a tornado forcing a rival team into Dillon a little unbelievable, especially with the way that the Laribee kids were acting. It’s pretty ballsy to walk onto someone else’s turf – someone who’s doing you a favor – and act like a total asshole. Given the enormous depth of most of the show’s characters, I thought the Laribee kids (and their coach) were paper-thin.

In other news, Buddy had to deal with the engagement of his ex-wife (are they even divorced?), which led to a pretty good scene with Buddy begging for another chance on the doorstep of his old house. I like Buddy when he’s feeling good about himself, so let’s hope that he moves on and doesn’t spiral downward into depression.

We should get some football next week with the Dillon/Laribee battle, and given all the off the field drama between the two teams, it promises to be an interesting game.

External Entertainment, External TV, Friday Night Lights, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

A quick comment about the next two Friday nights

January 4, 2008 /

Y’know, it’s a good thing I checked out those two episodes of “Gossip Girl” before I checked out the next two episodes of “Friday Night Lights.” If I’d seen the latter first, I’d’ve probably used the former as a point of comparison for how impossible it is for the average kid to relate to most characters on TV; the latter, however, is about as real as any show this side of…well, actually, I don’t even have a ready point of comparison. That’s how realistic they feel to me…though I’m willing to concede that maybe it’s just the handheld camerawork that makes it feel more real. (At the very least, it gives the show a look that’s unique to most anything else on the air at the moment.)

My opinion on “FNL” can’t be trusted as much as our dedicated blogger, Mr. John Paulsen, who’s been in the show’s camp from the beginning, but I’ll just say that these two episodes – tonight’s and next week’s – made for great viewing, with both the teen and adult storylines unfolding in a manner that was consistently enthralling, both in the dramatic and the comedic sides of things. The teen characters have the kind of problems that adults will remember from their own youth, such as a girl trying to accept that the best person for her isn’t necessarily the school matinee idol, and the adult issues – like, for instance, Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his wife, Tami (Connie Britton), dealing with her sister’s refusal to realize that she’s being a nuisance of a houseguest – are pretty damned familiar, too. And damned if it isn’t true what people have been telling me all along: there’s precious little football in “Friday Night Lights.” And when there finally is a big game, which happens in next week’s episode, it brings with it one of those great “oh, shit!” moments that you don’t need to be a sports fan to appreciate.

Hmmm…looks like Season 1 of the show is only $18.99 over at Amazon. Maybe it’s time to finally take the plunge and get the full experience of what everyone’s been telling me is one of the best shows on TV…?

Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External TV, Friday Night Lights, Reviews, TV, TV Dramas

Who needs writers when you’ve got a beard?

January 4, 2008 /

If that’s not officially the new slogan of “The Late Show with David Letterman,” it might as well be, since it’s Dave’s facial hair that’s gotten more mention in the press than the actual content of his first few shows.

I’m always gonna pick Letterman over Leno, given that the former was directly responsible for a young high school student in Chesapeake, VA, to finally learn that you can be perceived as a lot funnier if you choose your moments, so I’m not going to be able to speak to how well Leno’s doing in his post-strike return. (I do, however, think he’s stirred up a hornet’s nest with this whole issue of whether or not he’s able to just whip himself up a monologue, given that he’s a WGA member.) I can, however, say that it’s good to have Letterman back…even if he is just doing the same old show he was doing before the strike started.

You gotta give the guy credit, though: he walked onto the stage amidst a crowd of leggy dancing girls holding “Writers Guide of America On Strike” signs, thereby announcing that, yes, he’s still fighting the fight for the WGA. Later in the show, however, he scored a far more specific hit by bringing on “Late Show” strike captain Bill Scheft on to interrupt a punchline about a pair of electric underpants.

“Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to show you the conclusion of this joke. Why? Well, it’s to remind you that, even though the ‘Late Show’ writers are back at work, the WGA strike still goes on. Thousands of writers still walk the picket line every day until their legs cramp and their backs ache, only to return to a home they can now barely afford because of the producers’ greed. So to the arrogant media moguls who’ve gotten so fat over our sweat-soaked toil that they can no longer fit behind their oversized mahogany desk, I say to you, ‘Stop spending all your money on cufflinks, cocktails, and whores! Stick a crowbar in your wallet and start bargaining in good faith with the writers! Maybe then America won’t be denied the joy of seeing David Letterman hold up a pair of flaming underpants!”

God love Letterman, that’s what I say.

Another timely highlight was the top-10 list from the return episode, where Dave brought out writers from various other shows – “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” to name but three – and had them offer up their top 10 demands. What was #1…? “Producers must immediately remove their heads from their asses.” Sounds fair to me.

As far as his guests go, Robin Williams is always a safe bet when a host wants to ease his way back into actually performing hosting duties – that’s what happens when you book a force of nature – but despite being as hyperactive as usual, Williams got off a lot of great jokes about Letterman’s beard, including greeting him as “General Lee.” Last night, however, Letterman had the best self-deprecating joke about his facial hair, referencing his former gig as Uncle Jesse on “The Dukes of Hazzard,” with an announcer intoning the immortal question, “Cooter, got yer ears on?” Last night also found the more entertaining first guest of Bill Maher, along with a later appearance from “Juno” star Ellen Page; musically speaking, though, I think I actually preferred the first night’s performance by Lupe Fiasco and Matt Santos rather than the song from “Young Frankenstein” we were favored with last night.

Oh, but who cares? All that really matters is that Letterman’s back. It might not solve the prime-time drought we’re suffering through, but at least we can count on new laughs at 11:30 PM, anyway.

Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External TV, Reviews, TV, TV Comedies

“Law & Order” is back? Really…?

January 3, 2008 /

Yes, really. And I can imagine you might be a little skeptical, but if you read on, you’ll see that I started out that way, too.

The problem with “Law & Order” being in eternal re-runs over on TNT is that you’ve still got people out there who think Lenny Briscoe is still alive, well, and walking the beat. He’s not, of course, and the show’s managed to go on without him, but it has to be said that the death of the great Jerry Orbach really sucked a lot of the spirit out of the show; the attempt to fill his substantial void with Dennis Farina was well-intentioned, but Farina never really meshed with Jesse L. Martin (a.k.a. Detective Ed Green), and when he departed after two seasons, his replacement – Nina Cassady (Milena Govich) – worked out even less successfully. And, look, I’m a huge “L&O” fan from way back, but I gotta be honest with you: I haven’t really watched the show regularly since early 2005, back when Michael Imperioli did a four-episode stint alongside Farina while Martin took a break to film “Rent.” In fact, I’m pretty sure that the only new episode of the show I’ve seen since then was the one when Chevy Chase guest-starred as an anti-Semitic actor who bore an in-no-way-coincidental similarity to one M. Gibson.

It may sound like I’m damning the series with faint praise, then, when I say that the new season of “Law & Order” is shaping up to be the best since Orbach’s death, but believe me when I tell you that if you’ve been a longtime fan of the show but haven’t been watching it lately, now’s the time to come back.

Green’s got himself a new partner: Cyrus Lupo, played by Jeremy Sisto. The two of them have an instant chemistry that harks back to the classic “L&O” era when Briscoe and Mike Logan (Chris Noth) first got teamed up together. Lupo’s coming off a stint as an investigator of terrorist groups, so he’s used to being able to work a little outside the lines with his actions, but while Green’s not incapable of looking the other way when he thinks it might help a case, he’s not a guy who actively flirts with insubordination. they don’t necessarily mesh 100%, but it’s clear that they’re both good cops at heart, and each just needs to get the feel for what the other’s capable of. Sisto’s smart-ass one-liners are straight from the Briscoe playbook, and, man, it’s good to see a return to that laugh-to-keep-from-crying dialogue again.

Over on the “Law” side of things, there’s also been a bit of transition, thanks to the departure of Fred Thompson from the cast in order to pursue a run for the Presidency; as a result, Thompson’s character – Arthur Branch – has stepped down from his position as D.A., and now filling those lofty shoes is our man Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston). I think I speak for most longtime “L&O” fans when I say that it’s about damned time. Not everyone would agree with us, however, including those in the government who view McCoy as a tree-hugging hippie liberal, thanks to his various controversial positions over the years.

Replacing McCoy as Executive Asst. D.A. is Michael Cutter (Linus Roache), who’s never had any real dealings with Jack and, as he quickly discovers, doesn’t really get along with him. The relationship between Cutter and McCoy is at best tense and at worst downright hostile, which makes for a different and unique dynamic.

NBC’s going all out to make sure people know how great this new season is, sending out no less than the first five episodes for critics to screen. It’s a savvy move, actually, since any “L&O” fan worth their salt is gonna get sucked into a marathon before they know what’s happened to them…and, yes, that’s exactly what happened to me. The show’s even been rescued from its Friday night death sentence and been returned to a plum 10 PM timeslot on Wednesday nights, which means that it might well be rediscovered by those fans who had better things to do on the first night of their weekend than sit home and watch TV.

I say it again: “Law & Order” is back. Go forth and set your TiVo right this second, lest you miss out.

Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External TV, TV, TV Dramas

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