Category Archives: Television

May 3, 2007 · 9:32 pm

Everything You Want To Know About the Grey’s Anatomy Spinoff

While there was some stuff about Cristina’s wedding, and about Meredith and her father, let’s face it: we were watching tonight’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy, “The Other Side of This Life,” for a preview of Addison (Kate Walsh) and her spinoff (Tentatively titled ‘Private Practice’) which currently has a really good shot of making ABC’s lineup in the Fall (Although the Grey’s stuff got REALLY heavy at the end, I’m still choosing to ignore it). But, the thing is…is it any good? Is the show really worth a spot on ABC’s schedule? Let’s evaluate and find out.

The Premise

Addison takes a trip down to Santa Monica to visit some old med school friends who are running a doctor’s cooperative on the sunnier part of the West Coast. She arrives at Oceanside Wellness Group with one thing in mind: having a baby (which proves to be a difficult goal). The clinic is also currently lacking an OBGYN, after theirs had a little run-in with one of the partners, so there’s an empty office just asking for Addison to step in to fill the void.

The show basically operates like Grey’s Anatomy with a greater focus on different medical conditions. It’s got its procedural structure of cases of the week, in this case a surrogate situation gone wrong and a man with low sex drive. To what extent this would develop differently once picked can only be speculated upon. For now, it’s Grey’s Anatomy dealing with psychiatric cases and more OBGYN aspects.

The Characters

Any good spinoff, really, has to be able to create memorable characters that we’re willing to accept as part of the show’s universe. This means establishing archetypes that are different from what we see on the original series, and creating performances that are distinct and memorable. And, in my view, I’d say that this particular spinoff has done a fairly good job of this.

The Best Friend – Naomi (Merrin Dungey)

Where you’ve seen her before: She played Francie on “Alias”.

She’s the friend for Addison, an old Med School buddy who is going through some problems on her own. She brings a nice parallel to the table in terms of Addison’s goal of having a child and her past relationship issues, and as the clinic’s fertility doctor she clearly factors directly into Addison’s plan to have a baby. On the whole, I’d say she’s a successful addition to the show’s universe, and she doesn’t come across as similar to any existing characters.

The Male Divorcee Struggling with Singlehood – Sam (Taye Diggs)

Where you’ve seen him before: He played the titular character on UPN’s “Kevin Hill” and ABC’s “Daybreak”

On the surface, Jackson is a little bit like McDreamy, but in reality he’s more of the anti-McDreamy. Although he was recently divorced, he is certainly not reacting by sleeping with random interns; instead, he’s remaining single and owns a small little dog and working alongside his ex-wife (Naomi). He’s got a successful book (Dr. Feelgood is his other name, apparently), but you have the feeling that he could snap at any moment and just go wild. It’s a complex character, and it’s kind of interesting.

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May 3, 2007 · 5:46 pm

The End of Gilmore Girls: Series Finale May 15th

EDIT: Well, the show has come to a close: tonight, May 15th, Gilmore Girls ended. For a full review of the kind of great finale, click on the link – “Reviewing the Series Finale…”

I’ve been holding out some hope in recent weeks that things were looking bright of the future of The CW’s Gilmore Girls. It was finally heading back towards its main story threads, Luke and Lorelai appeared to be back on track, and by all accounts the show was in much better shape. While there were rumours of this being the show’s last season, there was also talk of a shortened 13-episode season to close out the show’s storylines in a meaningful fashion. I, personally, took to calling this the show’s epilogue. And yet, with today’s news that Gilmore Girls has been cancelled, the show will be having its series finale on May 15^th. And to be honest, I’m kind of pissed about it.

There are some good notes to this story: this is one more slot The CW needs to fill, and therefore one more slot which a revamped Veronica Mars could find itself in. However, that’s a bit of a stretch of a bright side, I’d say, considering that I’m oddly more concerned about Gilmore Girls. While I enjoy Veronica Mars, I feel more emotionally attached to the world Amy Sherman-Palladino created and abandoned at the end of last season.

I had resigned myself to the possibility of cancellation at the beginning of the season, which was admittedly a rough one. New producer David S. Rosenthal had a pretty huge mess to clean up with Christopher re-entering the picture, and it was…well, an exercise in futility of sorts. The show really didn’t get back on track until Chris was out of the picture, and this was only recently. In recent weeks it has been building up to Luke and Lorelai reuniting (Often with an incredibly obvious swing of the metaphor hammer, or the use of Dolly Parton songs), and Logan is asking to propose to Rory. Rosenthal built a season that, as it concludes, could have ended the show when we came to this point.

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May 2, 2007 · 9:41 pm

Lost – “The Brig” Recap

Lessons Learned in “The Brig”

1. One Must Consider Purgatory Very Closely

It’s one of those things that producers have been denying for months, and yet this entire episode clearly placed purgatory as a real option, especially considering the speech from Locke’s father regarding his last moment before arriving on the island. In the end, I think that there’s a case to be made…but it’s a case being made as a red herring from the producers. [For more background on this, The Elder McNutt sends us in the direction of the Lostpedia Wiki: “The Purgatory Theory”]
The case brought forward by Naomi, and by Locke’s father, is that the plane crashed off the coast of Bali, Indonesia, and was in a four-mile deep trench in the ocean. Through the use of robot video cameras, the wreckage was verified including all of its passengers. Now, this certainly seems like purgatory would make sense, especially because Locke’s father’s last memory is a near-fatal car crash. However, let’s look at why this can’t actually be the case.

– Juliet, Richard, Ethan, etc.

Juliet is a problem because she traveled to the island without, you know, dying, although you could argue that concoction killed her. Richard and Ethan is the same problem: they clearly travel between the two worlds. The only way this could be unwritten is if the purple explosion killed everyone and began the purgatory…but some people had no ill effects, so that can’t be the case either.

– The Possibility for a Fake Crash

It’s very clear that this crash site has been seen as proof to the general public, but let’s consider it more closely. The site is in a four mile trench…that’s deep. It was investigated by tiny cameras, and has never been seen by human eyes. This means that people are able to manipulate things in whatever way they please. Would it be impossible for Dharma to control this coverage and create a fake crash site using elaborate dummies? We know that before the purple flash they were able to communicate and move between the island and the real world. This would give them plenty of time to fabricate things, so this “They have to be dead they found the plane!” crap doesn’t prove anything related to purgatory.

So, in the end, I think we need to take this all with a grain of salt. A big one.

2. Locke, first and foremost, is concerned about Locke

Locke isn’t out to help others, but rather to reconcile his own existence. Ben is playing off this, in my view, and I think it’s all a ploy. This is the second time someone has received a message of dissent within the Others (Juliet to Jack, and now Richard to Locke) and I have to wonder whether either of them was truly genuine. Do people really want a change from Ben’s leadership this time around? If I can, I figure Ben’s kind of like Gorbachev; Ben is trying to fix the Others’ problems, but in doing so he’s losing sight of the big picture. Of course, in the USSR, this brought on the failed August Coup. However, what if that Coup had a leader like Locke? I think it would be an entirely different story.

But, Soviet history aside, the situation here is proof that Locke is most concerned with his own well-being and destiny on the island. With his father dead, and with the Boone thing behind him, and with Eko’s death having purpose thanks to its coordinates, Locke is pretty well guilt free right now. Will he be able to make a difference with the Others? Only time will tell.

3. Jack and Juliet Went Up the Hill to Hatch a Plan

It’s the question I think we’re most curious about after the episode’s end: what exactly are Jack and Juliet up to. Has Juliet informed Jack about Ben’s upcoming visit to their camp, and all of their plans? Or are they cooking up something entirely different. Juliet’s motivations have always remained on the fence, and Jack’s reaction to Kate’s news was awfully strange.

Personally, I can’t know for sure what they’re up to, but I’d say that Jack is in the know regarding Ben’s plan. The question now, though, is why Ben would ever trust Juliet with any truly important information knowing her position with Jack. Is he that naïve? Or does he have something up his sleeve. Something to consider, I guess.

4. Sawyer Got His Man

Finally, Sawyer manages to come to grips with his childhood trauma and kill the man who did it to him. It wasn’t a really integral part of things, but it’s good to see some movement in Sawyer’s character. It was well-acted, his meltdown, and certainly allowed us to delve a little deeper into Sawyer’s past. He remains, however, intricately connected to pretty well every castaway imaginable (He was in Boone’s back story, his baby mama was in Kate’s, he met with Jack’s father at the bar in Sydney, etc.), so it should be interesting to see what role he plays in the show’s overall mythology as we get closer to it.

5. Rousseau + Box of Dynamite = ???

It could have just been a throwaway, but let’s keep this in mind for future episodes. Rousseau is now carrying around a box of unstable dynamite (From everyone’s favourite 1st season slave boat The Black Rock!), and knows that the Others are holding her daughter hostage. I daresay that she might be considering some form of rash action.

Want to know what else went down in “The Brig”? Continuing reading for a full recap of the episode.

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May 1, 2007 · 10:37 pm

Tuesday Night TV Society – May 1st (Gilmores, Idol, Veronica)

Gilmore Girls

David S. Rosenthal is doing his darndest to salvage what was left behind by Amy Sherman-Palladino in the span of, oh, three episodes. He’s used every trick in the book: giant hay mazes, car shopping, wardrobe changes, and even karaoke of all things. And, do you know what? It’s heavy-handed, cliched, and yet in the end…it kind of works. This being said, I worry somewhat about where things are headed. With Lorelai and Luke heading towards some sort of resolution, Rory and Logan apparently heading to the altar, Zach heading out on tour with VapoRub…everything seems very, oh, I don’t know, final. It’s like they’re handicapping the possibility of a series finale hanging in the balance, and yet they don’t seem like they’re ready for it. I just want to avoid a 7th Heaven-like scenario where things clearly came to a resolution and then “Surprise!” we need to fill another 13-22 episodes.

With 13 episodes looking more and more likely, I at least hope that the show leaves us hanging and with some sort of future for these characters that can fill that period of time. I also hope, perhaps against all odds, that Amy returns to write/direct the eventual finale. I’m sure her new pilot will fail anyways, it’s on FOX.

American Idol

Note to American Idol Producers: there are a lot of terms synonymous with rock out there, and sadly Jon Bon Jovi is not one of them. I thought this was “Rock” night, not the catalogue of the enjoyable in their own special way Bon Jovi. It basically placed the contestants into a situation where no real individuality was easily shown (I’ll get to Blake in a second) and any originality that came out wasn’t a true extension of their own tastes. If it’s going to be a single artist week, they need to have a diverse catalogue: sappy ballads and raucous “I’m awesome, now I’m going to sing about it” is not diversity, as much as there’s some quality tripe in there.

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May 1, 2007 · 8:56 am

The Return of ‘Veronica Mars’

As Veronica Mars returns to The CW tonight for what is likely to be its final five episodes (Spread over three weeks with a 2-hour finale on the 22^nd), I can’t help but be a little bit nostalgic. After all, Veronica Mars was one of the shows that I was a bit late to, catching up after the 5^th episode. Even watching the opening episodes out of order, I couldn’t help but become entangled within a fascinating character study and an overarching mystery story. Perhaps it is fitting that I watched it out of order, then, considering that this final set of episodes will be the first without an overall narrative leading them.

With the mystery of Dean O’Dell’s murder solved, we find ourselves at a loss: what drives Veronica forward in the absence of this mystery? She went from Lily’s death in the first season to the bus crash in the next, and then had little to no time to react before entering the rape storyline, which moved quickly into Dean O’Dell’s apparent suicide. The show has always been operating in this serialized fashion, although featuring various sideplots at the same time, and the loss of that could be seen as a loss of part of the show’s identity.

However, we need to consider just what that identity is. If this was a show purely about mystery, about a serial plot to go along with each season, we never would have gotten three seasons. It is the characters that drive Veronica Mars forward, in the end, which is why I believe that this five-episode experiment of sorts should prove enjoyable for fans of the series. Now, the show will have a chance to have its characters act and interact without worrying about connecting them to a core mystery. The mysteries of the week can be organized without worrying about the bus crash, or Lily’s death, but about who these characters are and where they should be headed dramatically.

So, in the spirit of these new character-based episodes, let’s take a little time to run down where the characters stood before this very long hiatus:

Veronica: Well, things were somewhat complicated for Veronica. She finished solving the Dean’s murder case, and felt pretty good about it, but personally she’s somewhat conflicted. She and Logan seem to be broken up for good at this point, which is clearly on her mind, and yet she’s really moving forward with a relatively clean slate. How long it stays that uncomplicated, of course, we’ll have to see.

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April 30, 2007 · 9:05 pm

Heroes – “Five Years Gone” Recap & Analysis

Why ‘Five Years Gone’ was a Colossal Misstep

Honestly, this episode was a bloody mess. It was chaotic, confusing, in the end fairly pointless, and to be entirely honest with you I thought it was comic book television at its worst. It didn’t build any characters outside of those directly involved, considering that won’t be taking place after Hiro saves the day, and it was a return to the crowded attempts that the show struggled with early on.

‘Company Man’ was great TV because it was focused, isolated, well-made. It wasn’t a comic book come to life, but real television drama. Instead, ‘Five Years Gone’ was an incredibly frustrating attempt to pander to that audience through various constructs and theories that never turned into a cohesive story. This episode could have been Hiro’s ‘Company Man’, but instead it attempted to do FAR too many things without realizing that this doesn’t make for good television. Its conclusion was a rushed mess without resonance or meaning, instead of an epic showdown. It was just ridiculous.

I’d read ‘Five Years Gone’ as a comic book. As an episode, it just wasn’t good enough. For all the details, though, read on for the full recap.

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April 30, 2007 · 9:58 am

Heroes Flashes Forward: Previewing ‘Five Years Gone’

So tonight, Heroes will be flashing forward five years into the future (As it will occur if the bomb goes off). Considering that the show had a great deal of success with flashing backwards with ‘Company Man’, will ‘Five Years Gone’ be able to achieve the same? Well, to be honest, I don’t really think so.

You see, the thing about Company Man is that it details things that actually happened. Like Lost, its flashbacks were designed for us to gain a better understanding of the show’s characters. We were able to understand the past dealings within Primatech, Mr. Bennet’s history with Claire and that organization, and in the end we got perhaps the best 42 minutes on television this season. The reason was that it mattered; it was an episode that felt like something substantial, something tangible, something meaningful.

The thing about Five Years Gone is that it will not, ever, actually matter in the core storyline. I’m no comic book fan, I’ll be honest, and this seems right out of that industry; the cheap, gimmicky flash forward into a hypothetical scenario of what could happen. The reality is that Sylar will actually be defeated (Zachary Quinto is a guest star, after all), and that Peter is likely to live. This scenario that we’re seeing, one of where the bomb goes off, is extremely unlikely to actually happen. If it was going to happen, if the things in this episode were going to pass, why would they be showing them to us now? It’s clear that things will not go down this way.

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Plagiarism Patrol: ‘Brothers & Sisters’ goes royal

Television writers are like any of us, really; they live normal lives with the same types of interactions with popular culture as the rest of us. They watch the same television shows, experience the same classic cinema, and likely watch the same Academy Award nominated films as we do. In fact, after watching tonight’s episode of Brothers & Sisters, I am convinced that writers Alison Schapker and Monica Breen (Late of ‘Lost’ and ‘Alias’) most certainly saw one of the films nominated for an Oscar this year. For, you see, they most assuredly ripped off the basic premise of Stephen Frears’ The Queen for tonight’s episode, ‘Bad News.’

This week, one of the many storylines revolved around a helicopter crash which claimed the life of a young speechwriter who Senator McAllister (Rob Lowe) had been hard on. Kitty (Calista Flockhart) was very emotionally distraught over this, considering that she had been the one who decided that Steven would be in the chopper instead of her and the Senator. This is the real plot of things, but in the process there was an exchange that was quite literally ripped out of The Queen.

After the crash has taken place, Kitty insists that McAllister needs to address the people, and he is aghast at this suggestion. For him, this is a personal matter, and he doesn’t believe that he should have to make it a public issue. Kitty, however, insists that the people need to know how to react, and that there are people who are counting on him to set an example. The people need you, Senator McAllister!

For anyone who has seen The Queen, this likely sounds very familiar. The entire film revolves around the reaction, or lack thereof, from the royal family (Queen Elizabeth II, portrayed by Academy Award winning Helen Mirren, specifically) to Princess Diana’s tragic death. For Elizabeth, this was a private manner for her son and her grandchildren, and she felt that she had nothing to say to the public. Newly elected prime minister Tony Blair (Portrayed extremely well by Michael Sheen), however, believes that it is the Queen’s role to comfort her subjects in this time of mourning.

I seriously doubt that this was pure coincidence, although I can’t real blame Alison and Monica for turning to The Queen for inspiration; it was well-handled in that film, and it was well-handled on Brothers & Sisters as well. The show seems to like to treat Kitty as its star, and sometimes I don’t really buy it…but her storyline this week held resonance, so I guess that plagiarism was successful in this instance. I guess if you’re going to rip off something, a first-class piece of screenwriting from Peter Morgan is probably a good place to start.

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Tagged as The Queen

April 28, 2007 · 11:54 pm

Dear Television: Enough with the Metaphors.

It’s now officially May Sweeps (It started on Thursday evening), which means that all serial dramas are heading into their final storylines leading into their season finales. This means that they’re working overtime to make sure that everything is lined up perfectly, and that we as viewers are along for the ride. And, trust me, I understand why they do this. However, for the love of all things holy, quit it with the blatant metaphors and anvil-heavy examples.

Get it? It's a maze!

I know that Gilmore Girls is heading into its final series of episodes in what could still potentially be its last season (More on this at some point in the coming weeks, methinks), but does it need to be designed entirely based on metaphorical situations to place its characters in. It began two weeks ago with the hay maze. You see, you can’t go around the maze, you have to confront it. Just like Lorelai and Luke need to confront their mistakes in the past, instead of just going around it. Because it’s faster that way. And then Rory and Logan were going into the maze, and there was two directions to go in, and they went in the same one. Get it? Because he’s totally on her side, because the maze told me so! I honestly felt fairly stupid watching it, as if the show didn’t feel that I, as a viewer, was capable of figuring it out without an anvil-like metaphor.

And then they did it again a week later! I know that even Amy Sherman-Palladino (Creator and former showrunner) used metaphors to get across her points, but it never felt so blatant. In this episode, Lorelai and Luke tried to reconnect. In the same episode, Lorelai’s car breaks. Now, she goes car shopping with Luke, but she doesn’t enjoy it or the cars she sees. You see, she doesn’t want a new car, she wants her OLD car. Just like she doesn’t want this new awkward Luke relationship, but rather her OLD banter-filled, dented relationship with the diner-owner. Do you get it? Because Luke is just like her car.

And yet, its popped up elsewhere as well.

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An Open Letter to Zap2it.com Regarding Spoilers

Dear Zap2it.com,

I have been a reader of your site for the past number of years. I stumbled across it in my search to gain TV ratings data, and it has become a permanent stop on my entertainment news trawling ever since. It offers a wide range of commentary, quick news updates, and an occasionally biting sense of humour within its briefs that I find to be quite engaging. And yet, despite all of these positive qualities, I have a serious beef with you. Why?

Because you have spoiled more episodes of Survivor for me than I could count on my two hands.

Survivor is one of those shows, as I was discussing last week I believe, that I don’t often watch live. It is much more often that I am waiting to watch it until at the very least Friday afternoon, having not yet found the time to peruse it. And yet, during that time, I would like to be able to spend some time at Zap2it.com…but I cannot.

You insist on placing a picture of the evicted castaway on your main page, sometimes unavoidable when loading it. When Anthony was eliminated earlier this season, I knew before watching the show because I headed to Zap2it to see if the ratings were up yet. This, effectively, makes the show’s last 15 minutes absolutely worthless. In essence, these episodes of Survivor are being ruined for me.

I know that you’re trying to bring people in to read your recaps (Hell, I write my own recaps of shows all the time), but is putting a picture of the castaway eliminated REALLY necessary? Just slap a picture of Jeff Probst up there, include a little headline which hints at the episode’s actions, and then save the photo for the From Inside the Box post itself. It’s so frustrating to know that a simple change like this one could keep people from unwillingly discovering who was unfortunate enough to get the boot the night previous.

You need to realize that this is the age of TiVo, where people will often have not watched a show for a few days after it airs. This is especially true of Survivor due to the large amount of programming within its timeslot. There’s Ugly Betty, ABC’s award-winning drama. There’s Smallville, for the young teen set. And then there’s The Office and My Name is Earl for the 18-49s. And, for the unintelligent, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? on FOX. There are a lot of options here that people might choose over Survivor…and they are.

But this doesn’t mean that people aren’t watching; the recent Nielsen data regarding same-week DVR viewings showed that Survivor gained two million viewers compared to its initial same-day viewing total. That’s two million people who didn’t watch the show that night, and yet who would be entirely capable of mistakingly coming across that picture when browsing your site.

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