Toob Talk

…and, wow am I glad I didn’t see that in the theater!

Seriously. They could have had two good movies and, instead, they crammed it all into one kinda crappy one. Pretty, though. In fact, as long as you don’t care about semi-sensible plot, proper character development or actual working story arcs, it’s the perfect movie–a collection of clips and sound bites that vaguely hang together, mostly because they have the same characters in them.

The Sandman story could have been great… if it had had space to actually grow and, maybe, brood a little. Him and Parker could have been great dramatic point and counterpoint. Different men, different choices and all that. And the fights could have escalated wonderfully as Sandman learned more about his newly acquired powers and the Webhead slowly became more attached to his black suit.

The Green Goblin II story could have been fantastic… if Harry had a chance to grow more sinister at a more measured pace after his bump on the head. Parker’s life could have been real hell as people and things he loved were taken from him one by one. All the while his emotional turmoil feeding the black symbiotic suit and making it stronger… until it culminated in the awesome knock-down, drag-out between the Web slinger and the new Goblin. A real study in rise and fall of character that would have given all the actors (even Kirsten Dunst) a workout.

The Eddie Brock/Venom story would have been perfect for a fourth film. It was just kind of sandwiched in between everything else. What a waste of that character and Gwen Stacey. ‘Nuff said there.

So, yeah. That was almost a total waste of 2+ hours.

After being horribly disappointed by the Thursday night show I actually watched in real time, I was slightly hesitant to queue up Swingtown on the DVR.

Very quickly, that hesitation turned to elation. This show could be really good.

Yes, sex and swinging was a sizable part of this introductory episode. But it was done with style, some wonderful situational humor and with great effect for character development.

For those who didn’t catch it, the basic plot is this: Bruce and Susan Miller have come into some money, so they decide to move from their distinctly working-class neighborhood to a bigger house in a nicer part of town. The move may be just a couple of miles physically, but social and psychologically, it’s light-years different. Susan’s now former neighbor, Janet Thompson, and her husband Roger bid the Millers (Bruce, Susan, their son BJ and their daughter Laurie) good-bye during the neighborhood Fourth of July barbecue.

Everything that goes on in the old neighborhood and with the Thompsons is played beautifully. There’s an odd rapport between Susan and Roger, it wouldn’t surprise me if it comes out later in the series that they had an affair at some point. The relationship between Janet and Bruce is distinctly antagonistic–he obviously can’t stand her overly-emotional nervous ticks. The cast plays the subtlety of their characters perfectly. Anyone from a small town or close-knit neighborhood knows people like these.

Subtlety, however, is not the strong point of the neighbors at the new house. Tom and Trina Decker are hip and proud to flaunt it. Be it in their coordinated jogging outfits or the swinging (literally) party they invite the Millers to on their first night in the new place. Our first introduction to Tom tells us all we need to know right off the top: he’s an airline pilot, he’s shirtless and he’s flirting with a stewardess–who he brings home to share with his wife. And he’s got the ubiquitous 70s mustache.

The Deckers bring out the more adventurous side of the Millers, much to the horror of the Thompsons, who just happened to stop by as their old friends were on their way to the party across the street and accepted the invitation to tag along. There is much comedy in this sequence of events, but also a deal of poignancy.

We all know how easy it is to fall into a rut, and how different we feel when we suddenly get pulled out of it. That is the transition that is played out during the party.

And that’s just what the grown ups are up to.

There’s also the kids: Rick Thompson and BJ and Laurie Miller. They’ve all got plenty going on, too. Rick and BJ are young boys just discovering the joys, fears and consequences of being interested in girls. Laurie has a crush on her summer school teacher, who is a stark contrast to her (also older) stoner boyfriend.

Not as wholesome and outright family friendly as American Dreams and far from as nostalgic as The Wonder Years, Swingtown definitely has potential to be a great show. The talent is there on the screen and, if this first episode is any indication, there’s talent behind the camera, too.

If CBS gives the show a chance to find its legs, adjusts its marketing campaign appropriately and doesn’t bounce the thing all over the schedule, it may have another hit on its hands.

Of course, this is CBS. They don’t always thing things through very well. So, watch it while it lasts.

I won’t say I had high hopes for NBC’s Fear Itself, but I did have moderate ones. And still, I’m disappointed.

After a promising beginning, the first installment of the new anthology series, The Sacrifice, quickly degraded into a melange of same-old, same-old flat characters and sad excuses for plot twists. We won’t even talk about the total lack of scares in the show. I wonder if the people saying how terrifying it was on the official message board cringe when their shadow moves while they’re walking.

The only thing about The Sacrifice (kind of a misleading title once all is said and done) that is anywhere near above average is the makeup effect for the main critter. Everything else, well, if you’ve seen more than one vampire movie in your life, you’ll pretty much figure this one out right away.

Oops, did I spoil that for you by mentioning that this was a vampire story? You’ll thank me, really. Otherwise, like me, you’ll get really excited as four guys, one of them seriously injured in some way, sticking to back roads run into some car trouble and hoof it across the frozen lake to an odd little compound out in the middle of nowhere. Once there, the place seems empty until the very blond, very busty and (shortly) very friendly residents make themselves known.

Right there we have so many different directions this story could go in. Especially with a title like “The Sacrifice”. But either short story writer Del Howison or screenwriter (and series creator) Mick Garris or director Breck Eisner fail miserably at realizing any of those infinitely more terrifying directions. Nope, instead they go for the tried and true “We catch people to feed them to the vampire that lives here” route.

And, man, do we get to that plot point quickly.

Look, I understand there’s only about 42 minutes to work with. But there’s a lot a skilled writer (and a skilled cast) can do in less time than that. Just look at any half-hour episode of the original Twilight Zone and you’ll see. Heck, look at the more modern Tales from the Crypt, they only had half an hour, too. The new Outer Limits did amazing things with an hour time slot, as does the current scariest show on TV, Supernatural.

In fact, the people who put together this installment of Fear Itself could learn a lot from the cast and crew over at Supernatural.

Lesson 1: Let your quirky characters shine! This is especially true if we’re never going to see them again. In the case of The Sacrifice, that would be Lemon, the brother who’s just along for the ride and always screws stuff up. Not only do we only get to hear a handful of lines from him (most of which are the same thing repeated over and over), but he never gets the chance to do anything. OK, one thing, but we can all guess what that is (hint: it’s right out of From Dusk till Dawn, just like most of the rest of the plot). Sad thing is, he’s the most interesting character in the entire show.

Lesson 2: If you’re going to rush to get to the point, it better be a good one. There have been entire episodes of Supernatural where the viewer (and the characters) aren’t sure exactly what’s going on until the last minute. That builds tension, something this show just didn’t have any of after the first ten minutes.

Lesson 3: Give the characters a fighting chance before you take it away. Really, it’s scarier that way. If the characters think they have everything under control and then suddenly realize they missed something important, they have good reason to panic and the audience has good reason to cringe–in a good way.

Lesson 4: If you’re going to go with tried and true legends and done-it-all-before monsters, you sure as hell better come up with at least something new. Supernatural does it all the time. Yeah, we’ve all heard of Bloody Mary and that guy with a hook for a hand who kills people in their cars and every other urban legend they dredge up for the show. But there’s always some new twist they add to it that makes it worth watching. The Sacrifice just didn’t do that.

I could go on, but I’d most likely be wasting my breath.

The good news is, Fear Itself is an anthology show, so the team that made The Sacrifice won’t be back to bring us more crap. No, next week we’ll have a whole new team bringing us crap. Or not.

I really hope next week is better.

But I’m afraid I’ll be disappointed.

The annual up fronts were presented in New York City a couple weeks ago.

For those not in the know, that means that all of the networks have released their currently planned schedules for the Fall. Without a doubt, some things (like the days and times of shows) will change before September rolls around. Other things, though, won’t be changing at all.

One of those totally done deal things is what shows won’t be coming back.

As is often the case, in the graveyard are some shows I really kind of liked.

Here’s the rundown of what you won’t see anymore. (more…)

Right now there’s a documentary on the Sci Fi Channel called Mystery of the Crystal Skulls.

Obviously, it’s timed to coincide with the release of the new Indiana Jones movie that focuses on the mysterious and controversial crystal skulls. That movie has been mentioned a few times. Mostly, though, this has been a prime example of what passes for documentaries of strange and unusual things.

Some of what’s been presented is rehash of what is now ancient history and common knowledge–I remember a lot of it from Time-Life books back in the 80s. Much of that common knowledge has yet to be supported by more than hearsay and conjecture.

But here it gets presented without much counter. Definitely not enough to keep the average viewer questioning whether or not there actually was an ancient civilization of Atlantis.

There is music behind almost every bit of this documentary. Almost as if the filmmakers fear that any bits of silence will break the emotional flow of the viewer and let their more logical mind kick in, allowing them to realize just how outlandish a lot of these claims of “fact and science” are.

It wasn’t until early in the second hour of the documentary that they even brought up the fact that the Mitchell-Hedges skull (the one they talk about the most in the documentary) may not actually have been discovered in Mayan ruins. That’s kind of an important part of the investigation.

At least if you were planning on actually doing scientific investigation.

But that’s not at all what’s going on here.

What’s going on here is a presentation on myth, legend and wild speculation.

Most of that mess could be cleared up by some actual, honest, serious scientific inquiry. And it does look like some of that was done. Unfortunately for the filmmakers, the answers apparently didn’t fit with the story they wanted to tell.

So, instead, they fill the two-hours with so much pop-mystical-conspiracy-dross that even my head is spinning. Yes, these crystal skulls have been tied to just about every mythical bit of anything in the Western world, but it’s useless to just catalog and re-tell all of those connections. Pick one or two and stick with them.

Better yet, let’s just talk about the skulls themselves. Need more than that? Then let’s spend more time actually exploring the history of these things.

I don’t know why I always watch these things. I’m almost always disappointed. Mostly because I’ve been watching documentaries on these mysteries for so long, there’s very little new for me in anything produced in the past decade or so.

Here’s a rule of thumb for documentary makers out there: if you’re going to talk about an esoteric topic, do something new. Don’t throw together a hodge-podge of every hot topic you can think of. Focus. If you don’t cover everything (poorly) in one fell swoop, you’ll be able to make more (higher quality) documentaries about those topics later.

In other words, as much as I love Richard Hoagland, I don’t want to see him in a documentary about the crystal skulls–unless you’re focusing directly on the possible extra-terrestrial origins of the things.

(Also, right up front, one of Sci Fi’s own shows was misidentified… way to destroy any vestige of respectability right away!)

I’ve put off talking about New Amsterdam for a couple of episodes. Mainly because I wanted to see if it could keep up the wonderful attitude it had in the first episode.

The show really did surprise me. Right from the first few minutes, it set a good tone. We quickly got into the head of NY detective John Amsterdam, a man who’s called the area home for about 400 years or so. Unlike really old west coast vampire Mick St. John (who’s more than three centuries younger) over on CBS’s Moonlight, Amsterdam has more or less gotten over himself. In fact, he’s doing a lot better than just about any vampire that’s ever had a show.

I’m sure some of that has to do with the fact that he’s a) not a vampire and b) doesn’t have to chop off the heads of other immortals in order to finally grow old and die. No, all he has to do is find his true love.

And I think we can all relate to just how tricky that can be.

Well, he’s been at it for centuries, ever since he saved the life of a local Lenape back when New York was New Amsterdam (why they changed it, I can’t say… people just liked it better that way… everyone, sing along!) and was “rewarded” with near eternal life. He just can’t die. Not for long, at least.

New Amsterdam refers as much to the Big Apples original name as it does to the idea of the main character reinventing himself. Needless to say, he’s been there and done that before–and unlike most other Methuselan characters we’ve seen on the toob, he’s not all that shy about talking about it. Most people just think he’s joking. It must be the wonderfully dripping cynicism he usually wraps it in.

The show is enjoyable on a number of levels. With a decent bit of police procedural thrown into a mix of relationship issues (romantic, platonic and familial) and topped off with Highlander-like flashbacks to the long ago (but not so far away) events of Amsterdam’s past, there’s something here for almost everyone. Some of the interactions can be downright funny.

If you haven’t seen the show yet, pop on over to Fox’s website and catch up. I doubt it’ll be around past what episodes there already are based on the track record of the other time-traveling/sci-fi-ish shows that were (not quite) all the rage during the first half of the season.

Believe it or not, I was huge fan of Sex and the City.

I loved the show not just because the main character was a writer or because of all the actual sex that went on in it, but because the characters were strong and realistic women.

Well, at least as realistic as NYC socialites on cable can be.

The ad campaign for the new NBC show Lipstick Jungle works hard to evoke the edginess and sexual energy of that other Candace Bushnell-inspired show. Having just finished watching the pilot episode, I have to say that taking that marketing path may very well kill this show.

The only things Lipstick Jungle has in common with Sex and the City is that the base material from both sprung from the same pen and both seem pretty solid in their own right.

Victory, Nico and Wendy are most certainly not Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and/or Charlotte. They are three women in very different places in their lives from those well known characters. Nico and Wendy are both married and successful in their jobs–their very real and believable jobs that would support their lifestyles. Victory, a fashion designer, is the only single one in the bunch and floundering a bit as she tries to take her designs in new directions. Overall, these three women are more stable than the girls of Sex and the City–more mature and, ultimately, more down to earth.

Sure, they’re high-profile power-brokers in their own right, but they’re also dealing with how being high profile impacts those day to day things–like trying to do what’s best for your kids or keeping that spark alive with your husband.

It’s one of the husbands, actually, who steals the show. Paul Blackthorn as Wendy’s husband brings a depth of character and an “everyman” point of view that differentiates Lipstick Jungle more from Sex and the City than anything else in the show. Even if no other actor involved in the show could perform, Blackthorn would make at least some scenes worth watching.

Lucky for us, all the other performers in the show do turn in above average performances. Brooke Shields as movie producer Wendy has a depth that one forgets the actress can offer–and that is almost unexpected in the character. Kim Raver is back in fine dramatic form as magazine editor Nico walks that fine line between bland and sexy better than most I’ve seen try that lately. Even Lindsay Price, the youngest and least famous of the stars (perhaps best known for the disaster that was the American version of Coupling and her two year run on the later years of Beverly Hills, 90210), makes fashion designer Victory into an interesting person, not just a semi-bubbly fashion hound.

For a pilot episode, this one was pretty solid. I can see the chemistry among the three leads working very well as they grow familiar through working together. The supporting cast–especially Blackthorne and Andrew McCarthy–have just as much to offer. I have faith that the writing can stay good (it did surprisingly well in the entire run of Sex and the City and Bushnell is still cranking out new stuff).

The only two things that will hurt this show are a continued writer’s strike and a viewing public upset that they’re not getting Carrie and Samantha.

Lipstick Jungle premieres on Thursday at 10 p.m. on NBC, opposite the new quirky lawyer show Eli Stone. Give it a try there or watch it online like I did through Amazon.com’s video service. (I’m sure NBC will be running it on their website, too.)

A couple of weeks ago, The Sarah Connor Chronicles hit the airwaves at Fox, a show that has garnered a lot of buzz in the geek world due to the fact that it’s a Terminator continuation and that it stars one of the favorites of Joss Whedon’s vocal fan-base: Summer Glau.

If you haven’t seen this show yet, go watch it on the Fox website now. (Now is the perfect time if you don’t feel like watching the State of the Union Address on live TV.)

In the three hours that have aired–before it was preempted by the SoTU tonight–the show has done a great job of washing the bad taste of Terminator 3 out of my head. Glau is a more interesting Terminator than Arnold ever was, especially since there’s still a whole lot we don’t know about what she can do. Thomas Decker as John Connor and Lena Headey as his harried mother bring a different set of facets to those now-iconic characters that we haven’t seen before.

Oh, and the action. The action is still there–in spades. There is, of course, another Terminator model chasing down the Connors, no matter how they try to escape. And some of those escapes are impressive, even for sci-fi action shows.

The story picks up a bit after the end of Terminator 2. Sarah and John have settled into an near-normal life. John in particular is enjoying the chance to be more of a normal kid. Sarah still suffers from the nightmares of the nuclear destruction wrought by SkyNet.

Needless to say, all hell shortly breaks use throwing the Connor’s back on the road and on the run, this time accompanied by a new protector: Glau’s Cameron, who starts out as the most personable Terminator ever, flirting with John when he starts at a new school.

Time travel figures more heavily in this show than it ever has in the movies. Any time that happens, I begin to worry for the quality of the show. Shades of the Enterprise temporal war and the cheap outs that Stargate: Atlantis gave us continue to haunt my expectations for this new show. So far, though, it hasn’t been used too much.

But we have only seen three hours of the show. And it’s ratings are sliding, so we may not have many more to watch, even with the ongoing writer’s strike. What you can do, though, is check out Popular Mechanics’ run down of the different Terminator models, including the newest one.

Bottom line is, I’m still enjoying the show immensely. Yes, the characters are different, but a lot of time has passed since those first two movies–that wears on people, even ones who grow up to be legendary heroes of the human race.

December always brings with it the traditional television season break.

Over the past decade, it’s served more as the mile-marker where half the shows pull off the road and a whole new set get ready to come on. This year, with the writer’s strike going on, there’s more chance than usual that everything on up to this point won’t be coming back.

So far, though, this season has been better than most I can remember. Here’s what I’ve been enjoying.

Kid Nation — Probably the best new reality show I’ve seen in a while. While I was at first worried it would be exploitive, it’s been downright inspirational. It wraps up next week and I really can’t wait to see what they have in store. Heck, I’m even looking forward to a reunion show a decade down the road, some of those kids are going to do amazing things.

Samantha Who? — Of all the new sitcoms, this one has a pedigree that actually paid off. Unlike Back to You (which should have been good, but wasn’t even close), the talents of the cast are utilized fully. Christina Applegate and Jean Smart play the perfect dysfunctional mother-daughter opposite one another and the rest of the cast adds more spice. Applegate is always a trip to watch and this show has given her a chance to actually play a range.

Dirty Sexy Money — I’m not fully caught up with all the episodes I’ve recorded, but this show just keeps getting better. It gets more twisted, more wild and just plain more fun every hour. The screwball family dynamics of the Darlings and the not quite Everyman portrayal by Peter Krause of lawyer Nick George is a near-endless source of entertainment. Granted, I don’t really see the show lasting more than two seasons (if it even gets through a full 22 episode run), but it’s going to be good while it lasts.

Pushing Daisies — I had hoped this show would be as creative, twisted and quirky as everything else Bryan Fuller has been involved in. Those hopes were more than met. The story of the pie-maker, the shady PI, the living dead girl and the cast of characters they encounter has been the most fantastical thing I’ve seen on network TV since Amazing Stories. Without question, the show is beautiful, but it’s fairy tale feel gives it a depth and timelessness few other shows could ever hope to touch.

The Big Bang Theory — When I watched the first episode, I hated this show. Needless to say, it got better. A lot better. As the writers and actors found the characters, Leonard, Sheldon and their gaggle of geeks and dorks (and Penny, the hot neighbor) have come to life and kept me laughing. Sure I’ve cringed a bit, too, but it was always because I started to think “Oh, crap… I’ve had that conversation and seen that happen.”

Journeyman — While the comparisons to Quantum Leap are inevitable, this show has come into its own quite well over the past weeks. While the main character may be jumping around time trying to put things right, he’s got a problem to deal with that Sam never did: he slips without warning and always comes back to his home time, often with odd consequences on both ends of the trip. Things get even more complicated as we meet more people who may be involved in manipulating events and slipping through time. This show got right everything that last season’s Daybreak got wrong.

Bionic Woman — Not quite as strong as I had hoped it would be, but Bionic Woman has still been a fun ride. The last couple of episodes seem to have finally hit their stride, making sharp the dark edge the show has been playing with and crystallizing the characters in more three-dimensional ways than before. Thankfully, they’ve avoided the temptation of camp and stuck to serious (or at least realistic) stories.

Reaper — Sure, it’s not a high-class show. What it is is just plain cotton-candy fun. Ray Wise as the devil, as expected, means you can’t go too wrong. The show is silly, the performances adequate for the stories. It’s low-impact, slightly above average, pure entertainment. Problems only flare up when they hint at darker and deeper sub-plots. Really, the show probably can’t handle that. Things should be OK if they don’t try too hard.

Life — It’s not very often that a truly different cop show comes along. Life is that rare bird. It’s got a hard-core revenge plot line the equal of any Dirty Harry film (though with a lot less shooting), but it’s also got humor and humanity in spades. The only thing it’s kind of light on is proper procedural details. Luckily, it doesn’t bill itself as a procedural—it’s a character driven drama that just happens to be full of cops and criminals. And it’s far from clear which is which most of the time.

Chuck — I still think this show has a limited shelf-life. They’ve only got one or two gags so far and, even though they just added a new (though expected) twist to the mix, I don’t know how they’d sustain it for multiple seasons and keep it as fun and interesting as it’s been. And it has been fun and interesting. The spy intrigue and relationship drama, along with the workplace humor, are all well above average.

As the remaining episodes of the current shows wind down, I’m looking forward to the replacements that are on their way. Until they show up, though, I’m going to keep enjoying what’s left of the good new ones. (And, of course, I’m also enjoying what’s left of all the returning shows I’ve been watching and recording.)

I’m apparently a little behind the times.

There’s a new show that should be hitting the NBC airwaves next year and I just found out about it.

Normally, that’s not too disconcerting of a thing. After all, I live in the DC area and not LA or NY.

What’s disturbing here is that the show I just found out about is by a high-powered producing team, with a solid (though not well-known) cast, that’s already drawing in viewers.

How’s it doing that if it hasn’t hit the network yet? By hitting the Web first.

The show is called Quarterlife and it’s the brainchild of David Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz (they’re the ones that brought us My So Called Life and Thirtysomething).

I spent some time today watching the six parts that have been posted so far (over at MySpaceTV), each between seven and fourteen minutes long. In the television world, they would be strung together to make the first hour-long episode. Online, they’ve been posting two a week for the past three weeks.

Unlike last year’s LonelyGirl15 stuff, Quarterlife doesn’t try to sneak in as a genuine blog–it is unabashedly a produced series. Even better, it’s got production values on par with your normal network show. If they’ve really cut any corners, they’ve been more than covered up by the style (kind of quickly cut and quirky) and basic format (online video) of the show.

The basic premise is relatively common–a handful of 20-somethings living with or near one another, trying to make sense of the world their in, trying to make friendships and romance work, trying to figure out life and work in general. There’s an actress, a couple of film makers and then there’s the character who’s the audience’s gateway into this world: a video blogger.

If that isn’t a cutting edge show, I don’t know what is.

It’s not the most original premise, but the first six parts definitely touch on themes that have been commonplace in entertainment media for generations. This show just frames them in something it’s current target audience can really relate to. Fifteen years ago, it would have been centered around that same bunch of friends accidentally finding the online message board postings of the main character. Twenty years ago, they’d have to actually be reading a paper diary or the main commentator would have to actually have a print column somewhere–in other words, it really wouldn’t work the same at all.

The performances by the cast are pretty good based on normal television pilot standards and excellent based on what you normally see on independently produced videos. The difference, I’m guessing, is in the amount of money and time the producers have had to invest in the thing. The actors have all shown up in other places before–I know I spend a lot of time thinking “Hey! I’ve seen them somewhere before!” and, sure enough, a quick check of the show’s listing on IMDB turned up slightly unfamiliar names with much more familiar credits.

As an interesting side note, the producers tried a show with almost the same name (and a similar premise) a few years ago on network TV. It was called 1/4Life and didn’t quite take (I didn’t even remember it until I really sat and thought for a while–and even then only because Shiri Appleby was in it).

If Quaterlife does make it to air on NBC, as has been reported, it will be the first show to make the leap from independent web production to mass network consumption. Even better, since the show is already well into production for the web, the ongoing writer’s strike shouldn’t really have an effect.

Could this be the way of the future? Short runs of shows done for an online audience that then vie for the attention of the TV networks? Do the “five or ten minutes here and there” habits of online video watchers translate to the “you’ll watch when we say you’ll watch” mentality of traditional networks?

I’d like to think that, at the absolute least, we can count on more high-quality online shows. While I’d love to see some of the better ones make the leap to the traditional mass media screen, I won’t be holding my breath. If there’s one thing the major media companies have proved again and again it’s that they adapt slowly. (They are, after all, still using sweeps months and Nielsen ratings to determine what stays and what goes and not at all taking into account the changing viewing habits of their key demographic.)

If things go exceptionally well, the online arena may, indeed, become where nascent shows duke it out. We all know that the online community can be more vicious than any network executive. We also know that it can be a fully interactive process, with the viewers and fans communicating directly with the people who make the decisions on how the show progresses. That’s something that traditional TV has never really had on a large scale. It completely inverts the power structure.

For now, though, I say check out Quarterlife. It may not be the future, but it is good entertainment. It touches on important issues for those of us who communicate and hang out here in the Blogosphere should be well aware of. How our personal observations, when posted in a public forum (be it accidentally or on purpose), can deeply affect those around us. How this new method of communication is still growing and still experiencing growing pains.

We’re all learning how to best interact here in the public digital realm. We may as well watch some fictional characters muddle through it, too.

And then, if they end up on our television screens, watch how it plays out in the “real world” of the general population.

Bryan Fuller is, apparently, a god among television producers.

Almost every single show he’s produced, I’ve loved.

Pushing Daisies is no different.

Yes, the pilot felt a little uneven at times, but at its worst it was still better than most others I’ve seen. Ever. I can also fully understand why this show will quickly be canceled, much like some of Fuller’s other shows.

The show centers around Ned (Lee Pace), a young man who discovers early on that he can bring dead things back to life with a touch. Shortly after, he discovers two other things. Firstly, that if the thing he has brought back to life stays alive for more than a minute, something else nearby dies. Secondly, that if he ever touches something he’s brought back to life again, it dies. Permanently.

There’s also a girl. Her name is Chuck (Anna Friel). She lived next to Ned and they really liked each other. But they were only nine when Ned’s mother died (and came back to life) and Chuck’s father died (and then Ned’s mother died again). Soon they were separated by the cold forces of reality. But not before one, sweet, first kiss.

Time passes as time does and Ned finds two uses for his gift–making the best pies (because his fruit is always fresh) and helping a less than ethical private detective (Chi McBride) solve murder cases and collect reward money (by asking the murder victim who killed them).

As fate would have it, Chuck comes back into his life. Unfortunately, it’s on a slab.

And that is where the story really starts.

Visually, there’s nothing on TV quite like this show, the over-processed colors and visual tricks add a certain surreal feel. Narratively, it is unique in it’s story-book feel, mostly due to the copious use of a verbose narrator. The closest I’ve seen to this mix before is in Tim Burton’s Big Fish. That particular mix isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

The characters are quirky, distinct and engaging. The writing is funny in an Edward Gorey kind of way. And the overall story is as heart-warming and classical as any good fairy tale.

If that sort of thing is to your liking, tune in and catch the show before it’s gone.

Of course, Fuller could get really lucky and have Daisies be as big a hit as Heroes.

Well, that was unexpected.

Cavemen didn’t totally suck. In fact, I think it’s the best written new sitcom I’ve seen so far this season. Even better, there’s no laugh track.

This show could work even it weren’t populated with cavemen. Most of the comedy is true situation based comedy, as opposed to the all too common one-liners and insult humor that populates the majority of sitcoms. What having cavemen as the main characters allows the writers to do, though, is deal with issues like racism without immediately setting off the raw nerves that are associated with the topic.

I hate to say it, but I think this show may actually be pretty good.

That worries me because I really don’t want to see a slew of copy-cat, based on commercial character, sitcoms. I doubt most would bother to put the work in that the Cavemen team has.

When I tuned in to Life, I expected yet another cop show (like K-Ville). What I got was a bit more.

Life tells the story of cop Charlie Crews who is sent to prison, only to be exonerated twelve years later. He returns to the force as part of his settlement and gets back to work. Of course, he spent a bunch of those 12 years in solitary (being a cop in the general population of a maximum security prison isn’t a pleasant thing), so he’s got a few personality quirks.

It’s those quirks that make this show stand out above the other cop shows. Crews (played excellently by Damian Lewis) is a great character. The story unfolds in such a way that, right from the beginning, we know that he’s a little bit off… and by the end we know just how off he may be.

Of course, it’s that special insight he has–that incredibly skewed point of view–that makes him the great cop that he is. And there is no lack of good TV police work in the show.

Even the underlying thread–the question of how he got into and out of prison–is engaging and not over done. Mostly, it’s dealt with through documentary style interviews (a convention that many shows have tried and just as many have abandoned). The rest is dealt with through good writing for and good performances from the supporting characters.

I wasn’t expecting to like it, but Life instantly made it onto my “must see” list. You should check it out, too.

Moonlight is the new show about a vampire, living in LA and fighting crime.

Don’t confuse it with Angel.

Don’t confuse it with Forever Knight.

Both of those shows are infinitely superior.

Sure, Moonlight has a brooding vampire in it, but Mick St. John has only been around for 90 or so years. He’s painfully human–not in the suffering yet noble way that Angel was, but in a whining, self-important sort of way. Mick’s also got a friend from “way back” (played by Veronica Mars bad boy Jason Dohring), except he’s not a smooth, manipulative bad-ass like Knight’s Lacroix, he’s more of a cutthroat businessman (which really doesn’t play will with Dohring as the character).

Moonlight is also a private detective show. So you don’t forget this, there is copious voice overs in the pilot.

What it comes down to is this: Moonlight just feels like a poor copy of many different things. It has nothing that pops out and makes it unique. Even it’s dark lighting feels like so many of the modern cop shows. (And I haven’t even mentioned how much a of re-tread the plot–about a suspected vampire cult killing people–was.)

I’ll give it another few episodes to find it’s voice, but my hopes from here on out are low. I suspect it will be gone from the schedule shortly.

With yet another high-powered (though oddly mixed) cast, ABC’s Big Shots could have been fantastic.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

It lacked everything that made Dirty Sexy Money fun. Things weren’t over the top enough. In fact, they were decidedly typical. Even worse, of the four main characters, only one (played by Michael Vartan) is really likable. One other (played by Christopher Titus) is tolerable. The other two are a whiny bitch and a just plain sleezey player (played by Joshua Malina and Dylan McDermott, respectively).

The differences between the characters left me wondering why, exactly, these guys would hang out. Only Vartan’s James Auster has an interesting plot going–and that wasn’t even presented as the “A” story. That’s part of the problem. The writers tried to make everyone the star of the pilot. Four distinct “A” stories in an hour-long pilot just doesn’t work. None of the characters got the time they should have. Everything, in effect, was a “B” story. But that’s OK because I don’t think any character other than Vartan’s could have carried a full episode.

If the writers and show runners are smart, they’ll let the other three “main” characters fall into the background and make the show all about the one good guy among a pack of wolves. That I’d watch. The show as it is? Not a chance.

From the makers of Grey’s Anatomy comes… a show that feels exactly like Grey’s Anatomy.

Not that that’s an entirely bad thing. I happen to like Grey’s. And I’m sure there will be plenty of people who like Private Practice just as much. But unless they differentiate themselves, unless they get a more distinct feel, they’re not going to keep the 14 million viewers they had for the pilot.

The good news is, the show has potential. Kate Walsh did wonderful things on Grey’s with Addison, who was originally supposed to be a short term character when first introduced. Other members of the cast–Tim Daly, Amy Brenneman, Taye Diggs, Paul Adelstein and Chris Lowell–will look very familiar to frequent TV viewers. They’ve all been on good shows. Most of those shows were canceled before their time. They’ve got talent and the characters have potential to be good.

In the pilot, though, they’re all kind of flat and dull. That was the biggest difference from the first episode of Grey’s. That didn’t leave me feeling like it was dull.

Hopefully, over the course of the next few episodes, the show will come into its own. It took Grey’s a while to really hook me. Maybe Private Practice will work the same way.

My first thought, as I rolled my eyes at the show descriptoion was, “Great, another lawyer show with quirky characters.”

And so it was with great trepidation that I tuned in to the first episode of Dirty Sexy Money.

Now that it’s over, I can honestly say that not only was I pleasantly surprised, but I may just have to tune in next week–and every week after–just to see what they come up with next.

It’s the top-notch actors that really make this show worthwhile. Donald Sutherland’s presence alone adds a bit of class to the show, regardless of how lost and intermittently vile his character (the patriarch of New York’s richest and most famous family, the Darlings) is. Jill Clayburgh as the matriarch of that family is the perfect compliment to Sutherland. And Peter Krause is cast perfectly as their diametric opposite–their new family lawyer.

Krause plays Nick George, the son of the Darling’s recently deceased (in a plane crash) family lawyer. George, like his father, is a lawyer. Unlike his father, he is determined to be a good family man. After seeing how working for the Darling’s destroyed his parent’s marriage and knowing full well how difficult the job was on him as a young boy, George doesn’t want to put his own wife and young daughter through similar problems. Instead he runs a private practice that does as much charity work as possible.

But when Tripp Darling (Sutherland) offers him the job as family lawyer and tacks on an extra ten million dollars a year for George’s charity work, he reluctantly agrees.

The next 24 hours of his life are chock full of utter mayhem.

And we all get to go along for the crazy, disjointed, engaging and, ultimately, heart-warming ride.

Gorge is a man of integrity and virtue among a gaggle of self-important, self-indulgent, holier-than-thou, spoiled rich people. He is destined to be the conscience of the dysfunctional Darling family. If he can stand it.

Every character in this ensemble is quirky in a good way. They all have just enough implied depth that they stand out from the caricatures that they almost are. Each one, even in the space of an hour-long pilot episode shows a little bit of humanity.

Plus, the mayhem is fun. The best and worst thing about it is that what happens is nothing we haven’t seen on the news a thousand times before. It is familiar.

As I said, this show surprised me. I’m hooked and look forward to the expanding circle of mystery that was introduced in the final act. A bold move, since the basics of the show are more than enough to keep things interesting. If done well, it will make Dirty Sexy Money a true gem on television. If they’re writers aren’t up to the challenge, though, the show will quickly descend into a muddled mess that even Sutherland and Krause won’t be able to save.

Here’s hoping for the former.

Of all the networks, NBC seems to be a bit ahead of this technology curve. At least for the upcoming fall season. They’ve made three of the pilots for new shows available in a few different ways. I watched them on my cable system’s On Demand system the other day.

We see remakes all the time on the big screen. It doesn’t happen quite as often on the small one. At least not outright ones that aren’t Superman.

Why? Probably because there’s no way to avoid comparison with the original and TV executives are even more fickle than movie studios. The new Battlestar Galactica caught a heck of a lot of flack (even from me) before it hit its stride five hours into the series. It has since blown away just about everything else on TV.

The Bionic Woman is a remake (some would say “re-visioning” in order to avoid the negative connotation) of one of my staple shows growing up. The original was action-packed, light and fun, just like so many other shows of the late 1970s and early 80s. A lot has changed since then. This new version embraces those changes fully.

No longer is Jaime Sommers a tennis player injured in a sky-diving accident. Now she’s a bar tender, barely making ends meet as she tries to finish college and take care of her younger sister. The high point in her life is her (slightly older) boyfriend, Will, a surgeon working for a private company. It’s that last connection that comes in handy when their car is demolished by a tractor trailer.

Jamie is brought into the program Will heads. In order to save her life, he rebuilds her with a combination of high-tech mechanical prosthetics and nanotechnology. This leads to her getting the trademark bionic legs, arm, and eye. The super hearing kicks in a little later.

The big problem is, she’s not the first person to undergo the procedure. Sarah Corvus (played by Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff) was the first, but ran into some… difficulties.

Without question this show has more grit than the original ever thought of having. It’s got a very human edge, to it, as well. Much like the new Galactica took some key points from its previous incarnation, the new Bionic Woman has kept true to the core idea but made it something more.

This is a show to watch this season. If it does well–which I think it will–who knows what other super heroes of the 70s we’ll get to see next. In an odd twist of irony, maybe a new version of The Six Million Dollar Man will spin off of Bionic Woman.

It’s rare to see a comedy that has both high production values and an oxymoronic high-class flavor of lowbrow humor.

Reaper is one of those rare shows.

Granted, when I first started seeing stuff on it, I thought it would be a cold day in Hell before it turned out to be worthwhile. Seems that either Hell has frozen over or I was wrong about that.

Who’d have thought that a story about a slacker who’s parents sold his soul to the devil could be hear-warming? Oh, and don’t be mad at his parents–when they made that deal, they never planned on having kids, so offering up the soul of their first-born to save mom’s life seemed like a perfectly fine idea.

But, what’s done is done and now Sam, just celebrating his 21st birthday, has been visited by the big guy from downstairs and pressed into service. Sam’s now Satan’s right hand man, a hunter of of evil souls who have escaped from hell. If he doesn’t perform, not only will he still go to Hell when he dies (the devil, after all, does own his soul), but his mother will, too.

Sounds like the recipe for a dark and gritty show doesn’t it? It should, it’s only a slight variation on the plot of the short-lived Brimstone from a decade ago. The major difference here is that Reaper is produced by Kevin Smith and is thick with his quirky attitude and irreverent tone. So, instead of “dark and gritty” you get silly and snarky.

A combination that, oddly enough, makes the show quite endearing and a lot of fun.

As long as they keep up the writing, it should do OK. The CW’s decision to have it follow Beauty and the Geek in the schedule, though, is a little mind-boggling. It would fit much better paired with Supernatural, a show that has a similar theme but a completely different tone (kind of like how The Sci Fi Channel had Battlestar Galactica, a dark and gritty show, paired with the usually much lighter Stargate shows). I guess they just didn’t want to break up their Supernatural/Smallville block just yet.

Oh, and for anyone who was a Twin Peaks fan, good old Leland Palmer himself, Ray Wise, is playing the relatively likable (though distinctly unnerving) devil. Always a treat to see.

Definitely put this show on your list of things to check out, even if you have to watch it online or time-shift it. I know that’s what I’ll be doing. (Sorry, House still wins on a regular basis.)

In theory, the show could be funny.

In practice, it’s not even close.

The story of two total geeks (or, perhaps more accurately, nerds) living together in a vaguely run-down apartment building who get a new neighbor–a totally hot girl.

The Big Bang Theory misses on every possible note it can. Well, that’s not entirely true. Their theme song, performed by Bare Naked Ladies, is pretty good. Not great, but infinitely better than what’s supposed to pass for humor in the show.

It is obvious the writers haven’t watched anything involving smart but socially “different” characters since Revenge of the Nerds. They’re certainly not watching Beauty and the Geek (which has better dialog–and it’s not scripted!). Chances are, they’re working off of the same crib sheet at the scribes for Chuck.

Nothing new here. Nothing funny here. May as well move along.