Two Ladies & Their TVs

We love our shows so much we created a blog for it.

 

Weekly TV Roundup: 10/17-10/21

I figure when there's not enough time/inclination to give each show its own post, why not do a roundup?  Easier and less painless for everyone involved.

Monday: yet again, Arrested Development is preempted by baseball, the world's most boring sport.  Thank God I don't have to be subjected to it, for I married a man who couldn't give a flip.  Actually, out of the three sisters in my family, two of us married men who don't watch sports.  Rebellion against a childhood in which we had to suffer through every t.v. sport imaginable?  You be the judge.

Tuesday: This is my t.v. night: My Name is Earl, The Office, Law & Order: SVU.  When Scrubs and Fear Factor come back on mid-season, I'm there, baby.  Earl continues to be really funny, although I have to say that I don't particularly care for his brother.  He's just ahright.  Who continually cracks me up is his ex-wife; she's just so dead-on white trash that every time she comes onscreen she's hilarity with a capital H.  "What do you think? Cigarettes grow on trees?"

And on the show, she's married to the Crab Man (that constantly reminds me of Mr. Crab from Spongebob Squarepants), who elsewhere plays the Rubberband Man in the Staples commercials.  I love that guy.

The Office was more of a downer than in this season's previous episodes (in which wacky hijinks have ensued; funny til now, but I can't take too much of it-- I watch the show to see the hilarity in the mundane).  It's Halloween, and everyone's in their costumes: Pam the receptionist is a cat (as well as two other women in the office), Dwight is a Sith Lord, complete with $125 light saber, Oscar's a woman with a big blonde beehive, Kevin's Dunder-Mifflin Mr. Incredible (pre-weight loss), Jim's a three-hole punch (three black circles on his shirt), and Michael's the Two-Headed Monster.  I swear, I kept having Rosie Greer flashbacks, and that's NOT a good thing, Martha.

Corporate wanted Michael to fire someone by the end of the day.  Downsizing's always been a threat, since the first episode, and now we finally see that it's come to pass.  The cringeworthy part was that Michael did end up picking someone to fire... and the guy talked him out of it and left the office.  What was worse was that Michael told the next guy, the real firee, about it.  I don't blame the guy for smashing a pumpkin on Michael's Sebring.

And the tiptoeing romance of Pam and Jim continues.  I'm not a shipper.  Nope.

SVU: Well, whatever.  It was pretty good but I want to see the old format back.  You know, Stabler and Benson, Munch and Fin, investigating as two teams... remember those times?  Yeah, back when I used to walk five miles to school.  Uphill.  In a blizzard.

Wednesday:  Funny how I've completely lost interest in... Lost.  Maybe it's the constant hype, maybe it's Evangeline Lily's dead fish eyes.  Maybe it's that I'm more interested in the tasks on The Apprentice: Martha.  Yeah, I think that's it. 

The problem with two Apprentice shows is that I can't keep the contestants straight.  I keep getting who's on what mixed up.  One contestant that stand out on Martha's show is Jim.  Big fucking psycho blowhard.

The task this week was to develop a dressing for Wishbone and sell it for one day in what appeared to me to be a high-end supermarket.  The teams were switched up because the "creative" team couldn't win the treat in a Cracker Jack box.  So, the new "business" team developed an Asian dressing/marinade.  My two cents: don't cater to a select crowd when you want to sell to a mass market.  I don't think some of the flavors Bethenny, the "whole foods chef" put in there are very tasty, and I'm not as picky as I used to be.  The new creative team first came up with something that was green, but tasted good.  But they complained about the color.  These are sophisticated people who've never seen pesto, methinks.  Anyway, Marcela, the "cooking teacher" next came up with a raspberry (and another flavor that escapes me) dressing/dip/marinade, and they were good to go.

Jim was put on the sales team: hawking the product near the display stand.  He said things like how the dressing would "cure bunions".  Um, why the hell would I want to eat something that cures bunions?  He said he was injecting humor, but that's just injecting nausea.  And then he dropped the F-bomb... in earshot of customers.  Who complained to the manager.  Who, in turn, said if that ever happened again, they'd all be removed from the store.  Heh.

Anyway, back in the boardroom, we learn that the creative team pulled off the unthinkable and actually won the task.  They got to go on a schooner.  Big whoop.  I don't like deep water.  I think the rewards this year on the whole have sucked.

Anyway, psycho Jim, who throws his weight around, left his pregnant wife to go on a game show just before she was ready to give birth (I would... uh-uh, let's not go there, not a happy place), carries around his Voss water bottle like it's a third arm, threatens the other contestants... was not sent home.  Instead, the PM was, because she failed to pull Jim from the floor when they were warned because she was afraid his head might explode if she did.  Well, that's not what she said, but you know she was thinking it.  Blood pressure and all.

Law & Order: I missed most of the damn show.  YD told me it was a better one.  Damn.

Thursday: It's Survivor time!  They've brought back two contestants from last year: Stephenie and Bobby Jon.  I love Bobby Jon.  He seems slow, but polite, Southern... wow, nice belly.  Stephenie... I loved Stephenie last season.  She was the last one left on a team that was completely pulverized.  She was a trooper.  Now, she has a sense of entitlement the size of Texas.  She whines and moans and calls people who celebrate "gay" and idiotic behavior "retarded" and acts pissy when people don't follow her direction and cries about how she's always stuck with losers.  Hey, Steph?  Why don't you just be grateful you got a second chance and shut the fuck up?  My goodness.

I won't even give much space to Judd, the doorman from NY.  He reminds me of one of those gorillas who thumps his chest repeatedly and howls.  He's a bully, too, and pretty big and intimidating, and asks people if they like him, and if they don't answer within a milli-millisecond, he lays into them.  He's an asshole and I can't wait for him to be blindsided with a vote out.

The Apprentice:  I often wonder why people will read a word and add in an extra letter or two when they pronounce it.  For instance, my name is Athena, and yet I've been called Anthena.  Um, where the hell are you getting the idea that "Ath" is pronounced "Anth"?  Such was the case with tonight's PM, Jennifer, who pronounced the name "Zathura" "ZENthura".  And she did it with a big, ignorant smile on her face.  Um, yeah.  Her team lost the task.

But it was the Reese Witherspoon lookalike, Kristi, who was voted out.  You see, this year there's a clique, a blonde clique to be exact (complete with an ex-stripper, ya'll!), and she was its ringleader.  She had a voice like Robert Shaw's nails down a chalkboard.  And there seems to be no end to the women on here who think that they're singled out because "other women are intimidated" by them.  Uh, whuh?  Anyway, she's gone, and she proved her bitchiness out in the hall after the boardroom when Jennifer tried to offer her condolences.  "Shut up, Jennifer.  I don't even wanna hear it", complete with folding her arms over her chest, rolling her eyes and pouting.  Oooh, that's professional behavior for you.

ER: Now that Goran Visnjic's first in the credits, we can all enjoy him for the god that he is.  But now that all the Noah-Wyle-leaving crap is out of the way, the stories have gotten better.  Now John Leguizamo's on the show for a 12-ep arc.  I enjoy him.  I especially enjoyed that Luka-- Goran's character-- had the top two buttons of his shirt undone.  Yes, I'm shallow.  I make no apologies.  Everyone in the house knows it, and I'm allowed to drool between 9 and 10 Thursday nights.

Friday: I keep forgetting to watch Threshhold.  I may not even know how to spell it.  I need to start remembering that Friday night has t.v. shows.

Syndication: Of course I watch The Daily Show, Judge Judy.  I've also been watching last year's Couples series on Fear Factor.  I'd forgotten how fun it is to watch Ken and Barbie, complete with silver spoons and matching shirts, win four cars, $30,000, a trip, and finally a million bucks.  Oh, I mean, NOT.

Stay tuned til next week, kids, when I present the tally of how many times I gagged while watching the gross food challenges!  And may I say, rats are not anywhere near as gross as people think. They're such sweeties.  Folks need to get a grip.

Posted by: athenawj at 08:50 | link | comments (1)
it s all drama, reality check, the world is a comedy

Law & Order: CI and interrogations

Sunday morning, time for warming up before I get down to writing, so I'll talk a little about the ten minutes I saw last night of CI.  I was flipping around and saw that it was rerunning on USA, so I decided, "What the hell-- wonder what Logan's like now?"  I've been reading very good reviews about the addition of Chris Noth and Annabella Sciorra to the cast, and my curiosity was piqued.

 

I didn't see enough to form a good opinion, but what I did see was interesting.  Back in the first season of L&O, Logan talked about his mother, the drunk, what she was like and what she used to do.  So it was a nice bit of continuity to see Logan talking to a perp about it in this ep.  Bit surprising though, as L&O so eschewed anything personal like that most of the time; rare was it to see Logan, or anyone, allowed to open up like that (and the only reason he spoke about it in the first season was because of the horrible case they were working on).

I think I’ll give the show a try—if I remember it’s on.  The first five seasons of L&O have some of the best eps ever in the series, true classics.  I just wonder what they’re going to do with the character.  It seems to me, from reviews and commercials I’ve seen, that D’Onofrio’s interrogation style is a lot different, so I wonder what they’re going to try to force Logan to act like.  He’s laid back, and frankly, although I loved the character, I didn’t think he was the best interrogator.  When he got riled up, it just wasn’t… plausible.

 

Out of all the L&O detectives I’ve seen, I think, perp abuse notwithstanding, Stabler’s the best hands-down when it comes to interrogations.  It’s more a testament to Meloni’s acting chops that he’s able to pull it off convincingly; the menacing “bad-cop”, and when he gets into it, I really enjoy watching.  In contrast, whenever Benson tries to pull off the same, I laugh.

 

Stabler would’ve worked well on Homicide: Life on the Streets.  I don’t think anyone who visits this blog watched it, and I got hooked on it when it was in reruns well into its run, but no one can hold a candle to these detectives in the interrogation room: “The Box”.  The writing, the actors, it was mastery.  Some of the best moments of the series were in The Box.

 

A bit of “six degrees” here (and sort of random): D’Onofrio was on the episode of H:LotS (“Subway”) that won the show the Peabody Award; playing a man who was pushed in front of a subway train, yet got caught so that half his body was hanging over the platform, the other half only held on by the train.  It was a tense, horrifying, sad episode, and truly memorable.

Posted by: athenawj at 05:58 | link | comments
it s all drama

L&O: SVU "Ripped"

I’ve been mulling this one over all day, trying to decide if I liked it or not, and as much as it pains me to do so, because you know Stabler’s part of my t.v. harem, I’m afraid the answer is not.

 

 

That’s not to say that there weren’t good things about the ep.  I’ve enjoyed the actor who played Pete in the past (I last saw him in “Miracle”).  I was torn in the beginning as to whether Luke, his son, actually couldn’t remember whether he’d hit Pam or not.  As soon as I saw the steroids, I thought, “Yep, uh-huh, that’ll do it.”  Surprise!  Olivia actually apologized to Stabler, and acknowledged that he was right about something.  As this was a Very Special, For Your Consideration Episode, I think it’s very clear now that Christopher Meloni’s a good actor.  And Cragen finally stopped being wishy-washy and actually made Stabler take a vacation.

 

 

The bad was mainly the continued de-Stablerization.  Since miss merserene and I have gone on endlessly about it here, I won’t say much more except “Poo on you, TPTB.”

 

 

Here’s where we get into tricky territory.  Yes, child abuse is horrible.  As much as I laugh at “Degrassi: The Next Generation” and joke that I would NEVER send my kids to that school, I know how serious the problems in this world are.  But this show used child abuse almost like a fallback.  Such talented writers, and this was the best they could come up with to explain Stabler’s rage?  Moreover, it’s been how many years, with absolutely no mention, for it to come to light?  I don’t believe, even though Stabler’s a “manly-macho” cop, that it never would have come up before.  If TPTB are patting themselves on the back, they should stop and start hitting themselves over the head.  Maybe that’ll restore their creativity.

 

 

Stabler made mention several years ago, at the end of an ep (and a very good, disarming performance), of how he hit his oldest daughter once when she was little.  But that’s all we’ve heard.  What would have made Stabler’s admission more plausible is if he spoke about how he channeled the rage toward perps to keep it away from his kids.

 

 

I just plain don’t buy it.  It’s too easy for writers to do that—in fact, in the book I’m working on now, I’m dealing with two types of sexual abuse, but I’m treading very carefully.  I don’t want to be formulaic, because what happens in real life is very different than what you see onscreen.  Last night felt very formulaic, and an easy way to tie up Stabler’s loose ends.

 

 

What I found very credible was how Stabler didn’t outright tell Cragen that he was seeing MSM for counseling (although, wow, did she not have any patients when he barged in?  I kept expecting her to check her watch).  I watched a documentary years ago about cops and psychological problems, and many would rather kill themselves than seek help.  If they do, and others find out, they risk being assigned a desk or let go.  So, in that I found it very realistic that Stabler would keep it to himself, or at least from the Captain.

 

 

If this is it, then the last two years of SVU have been a joke.  Next week, it’s no or barely any Stabler, and Olivia and Fin.  Um, what the hell’s up with Belzer?  Is he spending all his time in France now?

 

 

 

 

Posted by: athenawj at 14:57 | link | comments (2)
it s all drama

Man.  Fox preempted "Arrested Development" for baseball.  How unexciting.

However, if you go to the Fox website, you may see an outtake clip of Scott Baio trying to say "Bob Loblaw."

Posted by: merserene at 20:03 | link | comments (2)
the world is a comedy

L&O 17.3:

Because I'm lazy, here's the official episode synopsis: http://www.nbc.com/Law_&_Order/episode_guide/374.shtml.  And will someone friggin' tell me how to write that out so it's not just a copy and paste of code?

I've felt this season's been better than the last few.  Of course it's the writing, but maybe my disgruntlement's eased by the absence of the robotic Elizabeth Rohm.  Whatever the reason, the eps have been more up to par, and last night's felt more like The Mothership of old, more like seasons 3 through around when Carey Lowell left.  More tension, more Jack of Old.

This one was partially ripped from a headline a few years ago, very reminiscent of the Jon Benet Ramsey case: a beautiful child model is raped and murdered, and her father is the initial, highly publicized suspect.  Ten years later, there's a deathbed confession that doesn't implicate the father, and Fontana feels the need to reopen the case.

Of course it had to be Fontana who heard the confession and knew the girl's name, but whatever.  I'll overlook that coincidence.

Other than what I've mentioned above, I don't know what set this one apart from the last few seasons; it just all played out better, the characterizations were better, so on blah blah blah.  I just plain liked it.  The father was played by a man that I recognized from many movies but can't remember his name (an unfortunate for many character actors), and he did a wonderful job.  Although I have my own notions about some highly publicized cases, I can't imagine being accused of murdering my child when I did not.  I'm sure it's pure hell.  That he'd held onto his anger for over a decade was real and palpable, and the ending of the ep was perfect; no sappiness, no tidy, neat ends.  That was real as well.  Many cops have no idea the power they wield in ruining people's lives, and expect to be forgiven because they were only doing their jobs.  That Fontana was not granted forgiveness was perfect, and just.

The only downside to the ep was the jury's verdict.  If they didn't show the verdict in the interest of time, well, that sucked.  They should have taken out the ridiculous squabbling between McCoy and Fontana (whose tough guy routine I despised-- leave Jack alone!) and put in a reaction to the verdict other thanb Green getting a phone call.

All in all, a good, solid episode.  I can only hope the rest of the season's just as good.

***

I didn't watch Lost.  I'm much more enjoying Martha Stewart's version of The Apprentice.  Plus, Mr. Calm passed out on the couch and I didn't have to wrestle the remote away from him. ;D

Posted by: athenawj at 06:19 | link | comments (3)
it s all drama

SVU: "911", The Office: "Office Olympics"

First off, on the SVU front: I didn't watch but the first and last five minutes!  Sorry, fellow lady!  We were installing a homeschooling program on YD's puter, and... I just didn't care. 

So, all I really have to comment on is this: Olivia, learn CPR again.  Because the way you do it wouldn't save a cat.  I'm a weird stickler for doing CPR right; maybe because I failed it three times before getting "certified" in school (I kept forgetting to check the pulse after starting CPR).  I know this is t.v. land, but you could at least TRY to make it look kosher.

Anyway, onto The Office!

The ep was partly about Jim leading the office drones in a game of Office Olympics, and the other subplot was Michael and Dwight leaving the office so Michael could finalize the purchase of his condo.  I'm going to swiftly recap Michael's part: meh.  I kept getting distracted by how Nancy Walls, Steve Carell's wife, was the realtor.  She was so MEH on The Daily Show, so I don't appreciate the nepotism (she was also in a cameo in The Forty-Year-Old Virgin).

The best part was of course the Olympics.  Jim organized them after 'dying of boredom' from doing expense reports.  First, it was that little football game that you play with the triangle of paper?  Then Pam made medals out of old yogurt lids (just who'd been storing them and why, I don't know), and they began a game of "Flonkerton", originally out of Iceland, in which you race with your feet on top of boxes of paper.  Phyllis won.  The last game was two workers racing around with full coffee cups, trying not to spill them.

Angela, the woman with the icy blonde hair and the immense love for her cats (she even threw a party for them), wouldn't join in.  When Pam asked her again, she said she liked to play a game called "Pampong", in which she counted every time Jim got up from his desk and went to Reception.  The realization dawning on Pam's face was sad and very telling; I think she realized just then just HOW much Jim likes her.  But Angela's become the Office Bitch.  It was a really pissy, mean thing to do, and she deserves every bit of the Tightass Award she got at the Dundies.

I think the ep served to show that Jim, if he's having fun and actually liking what he's doing, would be a good manager/boss.  He did very well at rallying the "troops".

Next week, the office kitchen catches fire, and they spend the entire ep in the parking lot.  They end up learning a lot more about each other than they really want to.  Although it sounds too Survivoresque, I'm looking forward to what comes out. 

Posted by: athenawj at 05:12 | link | comments (2)
it s all drama, the world is a comedy

Arrested Development:

"Bob Loblaw se habla espanol."  That about did it for me for the entire show!  Too bad Scott Baio only appeared during the beginning of the show.

Actually, well, ok, Buster clubbing Rita over the head with his fake hand because she was wearing a backpack that looked like a seal also got me.  And George Sr. trying to escape with helium balloons, only to be shot down by GOB and caught by the police.  And Tobias's hair plugs - oy vey!  And the "We're nice!" scene reminded me of The Night of the Living Dead.

Just when are the Bluths going to find out that it was a set-up?

Posted by: merserene at 14:21 | link | comments (3)
the world is a comedy