Girl Detective

Remember how at college you could follow the mystery meat’s many incarnations through the week? It usually started on Monday with meatloaf, then tacos, spaghetti sauce, chili, and by Friday there were some scary lookin’ huevos rancheros on the suspiciously invented “Mexican Night”. Maybe you went to a college that had better food than mine did, but that’s what I thought of when I read about Thursday night’s Office remix on A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago. NBC is airing 2 reruns that have been re-edited and mixed into one hour-long show, with new bits added. Unlike mystery meat, The Office is funny, so I’m interested to see what they do. It’ll be like sitcom casserole, and the new bits are like added cheese!

Not all the shows I watch are going through rough patches, as are Veronica Mars and Battlestar Galactica. Good things are happening on House, Bones (it must be the elevating influence of Stephen Fry), and Heroes. And The Office and My Name is Earl are still able to make me laugh.

Veronica Mars: so disappointing. Last week’s episode was pretty good. Logan snapping a pic of Veronica in jail, and the appearances of both Cliff and Vinnie all paid off. But the lame ending of the O’Dell death mystery? They killed off a good character for that? And I’d pegged the killer since the beginning of the season because of his bad fake hair. Why the fake hair? Was there a storyline there that didn’t play out? I’m about to bail on this show. Oh former favorite, how things have changed.

Battlestar Galactica: last week’s episode, Dirty Hands, about the fuel ship strike was terrible. I don’t like when writers change characters merely to further the storyline–suddenly Roslyn and Adama are fascists? And then by the end they’re nice again? And while Baltar is a master of manipulation, the sudden emergence of his social conscience still feels contrived. One of the writers of this episode was also the writer on the last filler episode that I hated, The Passage, about Kat. These filler episodes are NOT working for me.

“Sexyback”’s lyrics begin

I’m bringin’ sexy back
Them other boys they don’t know how to act

The first time I heard it, I thought it was “The motherboys”.

I wonder if Justin was an Arrested Development fan?

Tivo is perfect for watching the Oscars. We started late, forwarded through all the commercials and boring awards and speeches, and only got to real time at the end.

Fashion, good: Kate Winslet’s dress’s old-time glamour, though the shade was a bit too pale. Cate Blanchett’s dress flattered and dazzled. Helen Mirren seems to own the definition of “age-appropriate”. The color of Jessical Biel’s dress looked good in general and on her.

Fashion, not so good: Nicole K’s red dress looked like she had a giant red mushroom on her shoulder, and only served to accentuate how ghostly pale and weirdly non-human she looks. She’s done too much to her face; it doesn’t seem to move. Her hair color is too pale, and too straight. The skirt of Reese Witherspoon’s boring-black dress was distracting, though the shape was flattering. And she’s gotten too thin for her chin; it’s going to take over the world. J. Lo’s jeweled bodice was also distracting, and the dress wasn’t flattering to boot. Plus where’s the color, people? Bleige is not flattering or interesting. Kirsten Dunst’s dress had a collar at the top, and feathers at the bottom. And what was that shove she gave Toby when they presented? Play nice, kids. Clive Owen’s weird collar and blue suit did not enchant.

Ellen did a good job as host, though her her last pair of pants were not flattering. The extra ceremony stuff was pretty good, though I found Michael Mann’s America montage a little bizarre. And oh, yeah, the movies that won awards were pretty good. I didn’t feel there were any egregious mistakes. For the record, though, I think Children of Men deserved better attention.

For more gossip, visit Perez Hilton and Go Fug Yourself.

My shows are disappointing me all over the place lately. In last week’s Veronica Mars, “There’s Got to Be a Morning After Pill”, Logan gets drunk and teary, then gasps between words to convey his anguish. Apparently he’s been taking acting lessons from Neve Campbell. Richard Grieco and his non-natural nose showed up so he could become a suspect. And Veronica and her dad talk about sex. I wish it were affirming; instead I find it creepy. Dick is funny and the best part of the show.

On last week’s House, “Needle in a Haystack”, the show did a 180 from the week before’s turgid rape drama. House was his glib, irreverent self as he tried to steal a wheelchair-bound colleague’s parking spot. Both attempts at characterization felt heavy and contrived. The earlier episode tried too hard to show House’s human side. Then last week’s stripped that away to imply an almost sociopathic disregard for others. Somewhere in between there is a nuanced, complex character. I hope.

On the Office, the parts of Michael were so frequent, and so painful, that I kept wincing. It’s a hard balance they do, but this week’s show of Phyllis’s wedding was too much in the pain range.

But then Bones surprised me. I had been so disappointed with it earlier that I was on the verge of abandoning it. But then Stephen Fry showed up as the shrink to counsel Booth. He was funny, humane, and gave me a great deal of hope that he might be a recurring character. And Brennan now has a love interest. Things are definitely looking up. There was a noticeable absence of crying.

My husband G. Grod is a Philadelphia Eagles fan. Every season since Drake was born, G. has tried to watch the games and create an early father/son ritual. Unfortunately, Drake has never been on board with this plan. During his first season (he was weeks old), Drake slept through most of the games. During his second season (1+yo) he didn’t look at the screen at all, and ran around the basement, getting into dangerous items. During his third season (2+yo), he would watch a few plays, then get up, run around, and be distracting. And in this fourth season (3+yo) he would watch the TV, but be bored during the game, and fixate on the commercials. Progress has been slow, and not encouraging.

One commercial in particular got his attention, Dodge “Street” with rock-em, sock-em robots. Drake got upset at the violent robots, even when G. Grod explained that no one was in the truck, and the robot didn’t hurt the truck. Drake continued to talk about the commercial and the “bad robots” in a tremulous voice. It was in heavy rotation, so eventually, he was watching a game, the commercial came on, and no one was near the remote to pause or mute it. I heard his shrieks of fear from across the house. I spent some time calming him down.

This has now been weeks ago, and we still occasionally hear about bad robots. Something will remind Drake of it and he’ll become upset, or he’ll wake from a nightmare about them. We’ve been trying to invent examples of good robots.

In spite of individual hatred and a nomination for worst commercial, I’m sure the commercial will air during the Super Bowl, so Drake won’t be watching. I hope that the next several months will bring a bit of critical understanding so that he can like the game, and ignore the commercials.

Also, I’m not going to buy a car from a company that makes a violent commercial that frightens my 3yo and gives him nightmares. Nice one, Dodge.

It was with some trepidation that my husband G. Grod and I watched Bones last night. Since last Friday’s wretched Battlestar ep, we’ve watched some dreadful TV. So much for absence makes the heart grow fonder. Heroes (why is there anyone but Hiro on the show?), Veronica, House all chipped away at our confidence in tv to entertain. And again, I think we can blame things on the frakkin’ crying. Bones was so bad that we fast forwarded through most of it. The only redeeming point is that Epps is now dead, so they can’t do any more stories about him. What does it say that one of the protagonist’s chief nemeses makes for the worst eps? Bones gets one more chance to be good before we cancel our Tivo season pass. Sweeps week starts tonight. Will it bring an increase in quality–were the shows blowing the crap out of their systems to clear a path for dazzling entertainment? Or will they continue to shovel faux-emotional drivel at us? And depriving us of good stuff while including said drivel? Some people should start looking at handbaskets, if you ask me.

Oh, Earl and Office, please don’t let me down tonight. I am tired, and need to laugh. (Brief, bitter memory of dear, departed Arrested Development. Gah.)

Two hours of disappointing television last night. House treats a rape victim in clinic, and imprints on her as if she’s a baby duck. She ropes him into tedious philosophical conversations. Cameron gets another dying patient. People get tears in their eyes. Chase had a few good lines, like telling Cameron not to romanticize House and pretend he’d act like a human, and telling House to lie to the patient. Wilson also was funny: “Are we role-playing? And if so, am I you? Because I don’t want to be you!” Cuddy ran around looking peeved and concerned in a too-tight, not-flattering suit with an unpleasant collar.

Television, wherefore art thou? Amuse me! My days are kinda tough, lately.

I said I would be less tough on Veronica. I lied.

This episode was only good in the corners, it was rotten throughout. Hookers, bad jokes about hookers, winking at guy stuff about hookers, an evil madam with bad plastic surgery. Awful stuff. A plot that is a mishmash of True Romance (G. Grod’s call) and a storyline from season two of Rescue Me. Veronica and Logan bore me. Not to tears, though, because the cast had more than enough of those to go around. Ack. The Battlestar geekery was gratuitous, too. I remember laughing a few times, though, like when Veronica comes back to her house and says she’s going to Logan’s to meet two hookers. That line had the proper sarcastic edge that the rest of the ep sorely lacked.

Didn’t you hear Warren Ellis? Or me agreeing with him? Enough with the frackin’ crying, already. Baltar, Starbuck, Sam, Dee, and Apollo were all in tears. And enough with the drinking, too. Tears and drunkenness do not character development make. At the end of the ep, the four crossed lovers were in exactly the same boring place they were at the beginning. It is not enough to write “ugh” to convey my frustration and disgust. Imagine me rolling my eyes while doing a disgusted, escalating “ugh” that starts all the way down in my belly.

And Joe R at Television Without Pity makes this excellent point:

Bonus Scene: Roslin interrogates Caprica Six! And it wasn’t part of the episode so we could watch Lee and Tyrol bitch about their women! So not cool!

The long, dry TV season is over, and the shows are returning in force. Like the mid-season ender, the latest Battlestar episode was strong, and put some of my previous concerns at ease. While the ep sometimes lagged especially around the will he/won’t he drop the bomb (sheesh, of course he won’t), there was some good character development. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Baltar is looking more like Jesus (or Judas?) with every episode.

The big question is, who did D’Anna see in the temple that she said “I’m sorry” to? I think Adama is too obvious. I think it’s Starbuck, but I’m terrible at guessing these things. I read that one of the dead characters might come back as a Cylon. I’m hoping for poor dead Billy. I was glad to see the end of Kat and Ellen.

A reminder that part two of Masterpiece Theatre’s Jane Eyre is on this Sunday 28 January 2007, and there are several re-runs of part one if you didn’t catch that last week. It received largely good reviews in England, and continues to do so here. I have only been able to watch the beginning of Part I, and was disappointed. It moved far too quickly, and I wonder if it would be intelligible to anyone who had not read the book. (And if you haven’t, why not? It’s one of the best books, ever.) I was glad to see young Jane’s clever response on how she’ll avoid hell, though poor Helen hardly got any screen time at all. I think some of the detail should have been left out, rather than giving it such short shrift.

I’m eager for Jane to meet Rochester, and I expect to have a better experience as the show progresses.

Veronica Mars returned this week. I am one among many fans who have lamented that season three is nowhere near as great as season one was. But since season one was one of the best things on TV, ever, maybe I’m expecting too much. Veronica is still sassy, and the supporting cast is strong. I was sad to see Ed Begley Jr.’s character die at the end of the mid-season episode. He brought a lot of much-needed quirky humor to the dark storyline. At the end of this week’s ep, I was thrilled to see Veronica show up at Logan’s door, even though I don’t love the lovesick Logan. It sounds like he’s swallowing every other word. I don’t mind Piz, but Piz and Veronica? No way. He’s not got nearly enough dark side. Riley on Buffy had more than he does, and look how well THAT ended.

For the rest of the season, then, I’m going to try to be less tough on Veronica. We girl detectives have to stick together.

And it’s done pithily, even. I’m enjoying the mid-season break of the TV shows I watch. Former favorites Veronica Mars and Battlestar Galactica have disappointed. I tried one ep of Friday Night Lights on a friend’s recommendation, but was annoyed. My Name is Earl and House have been pretty good, but the only show I actively miss is The Office. I hadn’t questioned my ennui much until my husband sent me this link from Warren Ellis’ blog. Normally, Warren’s enfant-terrible-morphed-into-grumpy-old-man rants bug me, but this time I think he’s hit it, though his target of Sci Fi TV was too narrow. It’s a much bigger problem that pervades too many shows.

There’s too much fucking crying. Veronica is crying to Logan that he let a house burn down. Logan is crying to Veronica that she wants him to change. Baltar and Caprica cry to torpid piano music. People are crying on Heroes because the waitress died. The cheerleader has tears in her eyes constantly. And the time I watched Friday Night Lights at least FOUR characters cried.

[And yes, for you nitpickers, there has been a smattering of crying on the shows I claim to like. Cuddy cried on House, but only after he was super mean to her. And Michael cries on The Office. But that's funny.]

I’m with Warren on this one. Stop fucking crying.

OK, OK, Athena is allowed to cry when she gets her baby back from the Cylons. But that’s it. I mean it.

I don’t like Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica, either. I’m bored. I’m annoyed. I’m not seeing anything new or interesting. I am waiting to see if it gets better, or if I’m done with it. I am strugging to recall anything from the last episode that advanced the storyline on the Galactica. All I saw was a hackneyed plot, repeats of characterizations that have been done better before, and a seemingly random killing off of a minor character. As for the Cylons: the Cylon three-way? Ick. The piano music is enough to drive me away on its own. And what about the baby?!

For fans of The Office (US), check out Undeclared. By Judd Apatow, who did Freaks and Geeks and The Forty-Year-Old Virgin, it’s a sitcom about a group of kids in their first year of college. The first few episodes have guest spots by Jenna Fisher and Amy Poehler. It’s funny in the same cringe-inducing, mouth agape way that The Office is. And Loudon Wainwright III is hilarious as Steven’s dad.

Feeling stressed or blue? Feeling like Hugh Laurie on House is just too mean? Then check out Jeeves and Wooster on DVD. The episodes are funny without being cruel, and are good restoratives for the soul. I found both the DVDs and short stories by Wodehouse recommended at Mental Multivitamin, and they’ve been happy additions to my life.

Season 3 of Veronica Mars doesn’t hold the same thrill for me as did Season 1, but it’s still pretty entertaining. Last week, I noted that the TA’s hair was weird, and he might be a woman, and in that case couldn’t be the rapist. Boy did I feel silly for making that assumption when he told Veronica smugly that there had been no DNA evidence in the case yet.

With the disclaimer that I’m terrible at predicting things on shows, I will venture to guess that the TA was not born with male DNA and male parts. Either he’s a pseudo-hermaprodite (male DNA, but physically more female looking than male) or he was born with female DNA and has either undergone reassignment treatment (hormones and/or surgery) or cross dresses in order to identify as a male.

Just because he’s not what he seems doesn’t mean he’s the villain, though, and I hope he’s not. I have no problem with making B-movie actors (Harry Hamlin and Steve Gutenberg) the bad guys, as they were in Seasons 1 and 2. But a transsexual as the villain just adds to the objectification and vilification of an already marginalized group.

Logan’s mysterious announcement at the end of the last episode made me roll my eyes and hope that he was with another girl. Long ago I loved the chemistry between them. Now they bore me. My favorite couple on TV now is Helo and Athena from Battlestar Galactica.

And speaking of TV couples, I’m suspicious of how Bones can progress and not kill the chemistry between the leads. Did anyone else feel last week’s Vegas episode felt like something out of Angel? Maybe it was the goofiness.

Earlier this fall, I consumed the Entertainment Weekly Fall TV Guide with my usual fervor. But very little sounded good. I watched two eps of Studio 60, then realized I wasn’t looking forward to the third ep at all, so I didn’t bother. I watched the premiere of Heroes, and was aggravated by its predictability. I didn’t feel like bothering with the Lost-like ensemble of The Nine. I gave up on Lost midway through last season when I got bored. I figure if it gets good again, I’ll hear about it, and I can watch on DVD. I have heard good things about Friday Night Lights and Standoff, but I don’t feel moved. Instead, I’m only watching returning shows:

Veronica Mars: hate the new opening, hate the revised music, and like the show less since they’re giving Kristen Bell a break and not having her in every scene. I’m not sure there’s any way they can top season 1, but I’m watching anyway and it’s still pretty good. Favorite character? Dick. He makes me laugh. My guess for the campus criminal? The TA: his (his? not certain he’s a he, but then he won’t be the culprit) hair looks funny and wig-like.

House: Hugh Laurie is darkly funny. The medical mysteries are secondary to the character interactions and witty repartee.

Bones: the mysteries can get kind of lame, but the banter and characters are excellent.

My Name is Earl: funny, naughty, yet rather sweet, and not mean-spirited.

The Office: Steve Carell has the tough job of being the cringe-inducing guy while everyone else gets the laughs.

Battlestar Galactica: probably my favorite show. Things are pretty much back where they were before the abrupt change at season 2’s end, but darker, bleaker and more complex. James Callis continues to be a wonderful villain who does evil because he’s selfish and cowardly, not out of malice. Jamie Bamber’s fake extra weight is painful to look at, and I keep hoping we’ll get a workout montage set to Madonna so he will stop looking puffy and orange.

I should be doing any number of things other than surfing the web reading about the finale. Baby Guppy naps, and Drake is reading to himself in his room, though whether it’s real reading or memorization, I can’t say.

But back to PR3. Here are a few good links:

Blogging Project Runway
The Fug Girls on the finale
EW interviews with the final four

Did anyone else get dressed up to watch the finale? One of my group, A., did a dead-on Jeffrey look, with a black skull T-shirt, rhinestone sunglasses, exaggerated brows, eye-liner neck tattoo, and even a crotch chain.

I dressed Laura-esquely in a DVF wrap dress with no bra for the plunging neckline, and white fishnet stockings, which were weirdly fascinating to the 3yo boys.

Our hostess, K., put on an Uli-ish floral, floaty dress but woke her baby girl when she changed into it, so much crying ensued in the name of fashion.

Finally, another friend A. dressed up a basket with beads, in an homage to crazy Vincent. (Read the Tim Gunn part of the EW article to confirm Vincent’s craziness.)