Saturday, May 19, 2007

Random Notes on TeeVee

Some thoughts on the soon-to-be-concluded TV season:

:: I watched Heroes sporadically during the first part of the season, but in our household, 9:00 pm is a tough time slot since that's The Daughter's bed time. I'll probably acquire the Season One DVD set when it shows up.

:: I still love Scrubs, but the show's starting to feel noticeably weaker to me. I suspect that the next season may well be the last.

:: Sure, Mr. Trump, that'll preserve your dignity. I've actually enjoyed The Apprentice during its run. But I think this style of reality stuff is running its course.

:: Long-time readers know that I gave up on ER for good midway through last season (even after several instances of shark-jumping in seasons previous to that), but the other night I actually caught the last two minutes of this year's season finale, and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at the cliffhanger they came up with: Neela getting trampled at a peace rally. Wow, how far that show has fallen -- a writer proposing a development like that in ER's first season would have been fired on the spot.

:: With Scrubs and 30 Rock on NBC and Grey's Anatomy on ABC, I lost track of CSI for most of the year. Maybe I'll catch the re-runs. Meantime, CSI: New York has gotten better after a rocky first year, and its finale episode was actually a good "action" episode. And CSI: Miami? It's still the most fun of the CSI shows, in its gloriously campy way. Its season finale ended with a shot of David Caruso doing his iconic hands-on-hips, lookin'-at-a-violent-world-through-sunglasses pose from the roof of the tallest building in Miami. And why was he there? That's the best part -- no reason at all! There was nothing in the story to have Caruso go up there. They did it just because it looked cool.

:: Yup, my late-season replacement show curse remains intact. I liked Raines. It's gone now.

:: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is gone, and thankfully so. What could have been a terrific series about the backstage machinations of a sketch comedy show instead became Aaron Sorkin's monument to...Aaron Sorkin. If you ever watched The Apprentice, you saw Trump talking about himself and his projects: "When this building is completed, it will completely change the skyline of New York forever and will be the most beautiful building in the world!" And that's the vibe that Sorkin created with Studio 60, whether he intended it or not: "I'm just such a good writer! I'm awesome! Look at my genius and bask within it, mere mortals!"

Oddly enough, Sorkin couched his show within a subtext of "Wow, does TV ever suck! What we need is a genius writer to save it!", at a time when the quality of TV shows is probably better than ever.

:: Criminal Minds has a nice cast, but always depresses me.

:: I still enjoy House, but I think it needs a shake-up of some sort. Lots of this year's episodes felt mechanical to me.

:: Law and Order? Who cares?

:: I still think Lost is boring.

:: A couple of weeks ago, Grey's Anatomy had a two-hour episode where half the show was given to basically providing the pilot episode for the Addison Shepard spinoff series. This I actually liked. What I didn't like about Grey's this year? Well, I haven't watched the season finale yet (it's on tape), but if it ended with Izzy Stevens getting killed when she's struck by an errant meteor from space, I wouldn't complain. I loathe her character. I'm not too fond of George O'Malley, either.

OK, that's all.

6 comments:

Call me Paul said...

I saw a few episodes of Heroes early on and really liked it, but was unable to watch it regularly due to another regular Monday night activity. I'll have to rent the DVD set when it comes out.

I gave up on ER after...ohh, I don't know...season three, maybe?

I'm learning to like House again. I've gotten past the, "it's minute twenty one, here's where blood comes out of the patient's mouth - it's minute thirty-eight, here's where they discover she doesn't have cancer after all," trap, and now simply let the highly repetetive medical action be nothing more than a backdrop against which the characters' personal interactions are played out.

Oddly enough, I've still never seen a single episode of 24. Wait, you didn't actually mention 24, did you?

Belladonna said...

I'm usually utterly out of touch about what's on TV, but I do catch House now and again. Some I like, some just push the envelope of willful suspenstion of disbelief beyond where I'm willing to go in terms of what they let House get away with. I don't care HOW brilliant the guy is, there is a difference between being a rather abrasive crumugeon and being a rude, cruel ass. I can adore the former. The latter isn't funny, it's just plain mean.

Tal said...

I'm a new-found Grey's lover, and got hooked halfway through the first season. That being said, I hate the George-Izzy storyline mostly because it's just not believeable. They simply do not have the necessary chemistry to make me believe that they feel any tempatation for each other. Hopefully they figure something better out for next season.

Kelly Sedinger said...

That being said, I hate the George-Izzy storyline mostly because it's just not believeable. They simply do not have the necessary chemistry to make me believe that they feel any tempatation for each other.

Not only is their chemistry disastrous, but Izzy spent about a third of this season getting over the death of the guy who was supposedly the love of her life. Now, suddenly, she's in love with George? Ugh.

Kelly Sedinger said...

Oddly enough, I've still never seen a single episode of 24. Wait, you didn't actually mention 24, did you?

No...I'll catch this season when it's in re-runs. I hate the way FOX kicks off each season of 24 by airing the first four episodes over two nights. That screws me up.

Roger Owen Green said...

DVRs. That's the way to go. Of course, I haven't seen the April 12 episodes of The Office, Scrubs or My Name is Earl. Are you going to watch the last six episodes of Studio 60 that start on Thursday? I will. Heck, yeah, it's terrible but one does so love looking at a car wreck.