TV and Me

Many of you know that I am suspicious of the small screen. It is true that I don't watch much of it and far prefer heading to the multiplex. But I've been sick again. (My nurse friend thinks I have asthma! yikes. Meanwhile, my best friend thinks I have indoor allergies but he is a skin-cancer-be-damned sun worshipper so that probably plays into his "you spend too much time in your apartment" advice.) This has been like "summer of sick" for me. Never been so frequently sick in my life. So I'm super glad it's Fall. Oh but the point: Sick = TV for me. Very brief thoughts on a few things I've watched this past week:

Grey's Anatomy
Other than the undebatable talents and charm of the ex Mrs. Alexander Payne (Sandra Oh) I can't understand why anybody watches this show. I am forced to "listen" to it regularly and its writing grates on my very last nerve. Perhaps its the delivery by the extremely annoying "sad blonde girl" --that's what my friends call her (they watch it religiously). I think they mean Ellen Pompeo who is just like Renee Zellweger minus the comic gift (so...you can imagine my loathing). I am also sick to death of TV shows that rely on overly precious life lessons learned narration. These shows are not difficult to understand. Do they really need to tell us their obvious metaphors and lessons while showing them?

Six Degrees
I watched this out of curiousity at what they'd do with the concept but I'm not sure they even understand the concept. For instance: Jay Hernandez (me love) meets Erika Christensen (me hate) and falls instantly in love. He spends the rest of the episode trying to find her and at the end he does --they see each other on the subway. That's no degrees of separation. Both times they meet they are face to face and nobody they're connected to is serving as a connection between them. It would have been smarter to call this Six People because essentially all of the characters are connected but in different ways. But that's not what the concept of six degrees of separation is. Plus: boring and obvious. I love about half the actors but I probably wouldn't watch this again.

Desperate Housewives
So. Um. I guess they listened to all the complaints about the second season. The Housewives did slapstick, ate lunch together, had sex (not together. sorry), and seemed a lot more like the season one girls. I "get" the appeal of this show but I'm not a regular viewer and I thought what I saw of last season was almost unforgiveably shoddy in terms of writing. I love Alfre Woodard but that Emmy nomination she received had to be among the worst choices they've made recently (which is saying a lot given that the Emmys are often the most laughable of the big ticket awards shows)

Survivor and The Amazing Race
Other than Project Runway (excellent. genius. addictive) and America's Next Top Model (hilarious, carcrash fascinating) I generally have to wear crosses and cloves of garlic when approaching reality television as it always saps my will to live. I hate the constant redundancy. Scene A: we show you something Scene B: We talk about what we just showed you, Scene C:(after commercial) we talk about what we were just talking about. Scene D: we show you something (and repeat). All the while the editing is so frantic that if you are anything like a discerning viewer you realize that you should never ever ever ever view this genre as anything other than a fascinating case study in film editing as mind control. No conclusion you could ever draw is your own. You haven't seen enough. You've been shown a tiny snippet. Then you've heard several minutes of commentary on that tiny snippet.

But all that said: Yul (on Survivor) is my new imaginary boyfriend. And every single person on Amazing Race I hate because this show somehow beats Runway to the Emmy every year even though it sucks by comparison.

Design Star
An interior design contest. I watched a marathon and I only mention it because it stars my other new imaginary boyfriend (pictured right). Yum.

Brothers & Sisters
I watched this primarily for the return of Calista Flockhart, freed from both Ally McBeal and Harrison Ford apparently. I was surprised to find a whole boatload of watchable actors including double Oscar winner Sally Field and Tom Skerritt, reprising their Steel Magnolias marital act which was somewhat fitting since the other characters called theirs an "iconic romance." I was super happy to see a glimpse of the great Patricia Wettig (of thirtysomething fame) back on television. Sadly, Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under, Hilary & Jackie), another superb talent was saddled with the clunkiest exposition heavy subplot. B&S is basically a family drama. We haven't seen much of that genre on television lately given the ubiquity of hospitals, crime scenes, and reality programming. It's about a large wealthy and politically split family (half liberal blue / half right-wing red) and it was pretty intense. Some of it felt a bit forced but I was left with the overall feeling that this has a lot of potential as a dramatic series if it finds its groove quickly enough. I'll definitely give it a few weeks to find out.