Playing Catch Up

Having now caught up on The Wire (through last Sunday's episode), what's really impressed me about the three episodes to far this season is the show's ability to service a truly astounding number of characters while connecting stories that chart back through the first season... plus seeming to bring the second season back into the fray! Beattie (Amy Ryan)! The Greek!

In that spirit, I must ask... where are Prez and Bunny?

Man, season four still brings tears to my eyes.

Ugh, I've spent much of the last few days in seclusion (a combination of attempting to finish work on some projects and strike-inspired antisocial...-ism? -ness?). Plus my ratings source was sick and thus I wasn't getting nationals, meaning nothing to report. Hopefully I'll be getting stuff on time (not to mention waking up on time), since I'll be posting the prelims at PIFeedback.com for Marc Berman while he's in NATPE (fingers crossed).

Moving on to this week's TV (bottom line: not enough to tide me over through a hopeful-May/probable-September). Seriously, I looked at what's scheduled to record for the next 10 days (most shows are in repeats/skips this week... how much can I not wait for Lost's return???) I'm this close to recording Lipstick Jungle on February 7th simply because it'll be on...

Anyway, I'll probably miss some stuff, so... forgive me?

Friday Night Lights: You know, I don't post thoughts on FNL enough. The 2008 string of episode have really been so back-in-form that I (sorta) haven't missed the football games. Nice to have volleyball and some good, fun Tyra action in this episode. And how much fun is Matt Czuchry as something other than a Huntzberger? Not sure how many episodes are left... wonder if we'll actually be able to see any real fallout from Smash not eating his episode-title-humble-pie. He apparently attended the Ben Silverman school of how to talk to journalists.

Chuck: What can really be said about these two episodes except... Chuck, I'll miss you most of all (now that you're out of episodes). Come back soon! Please?

Ugly Betty: Gene Simmons can't be Amanda's father. It's way too easy (although, very, very, very fun to have "It's Mandy, Bitch" rocking out with the IRS). Not that we should really put stock in what any TV psychic played by Annie Potts has to say, but she did say "the kiss will lead [Amanda] to [her] father." So... where was Gene taking our Mandy? I couldn't care less about what Wilhelmina's sister's secret is. And someone needs to remind the writers (when they return) that Betty has a family, and they used to have plots of their own.

Big Shots: It's over. I'm pretty sure I can delete it from my FauxVo/TiFaux's fake Season Pass.

Make Me A Supermodel: The reviewer at Zap2it.com misses the point of the show's title. The "Make" isn't about the judges creating a supermodel (and while there was no instruction in this episode, they did have runway sessions in the first two... they also had the good-to-know measurement system to track fitness). The "Make" is about the viewer vote. Though I do agree on the point that the show is too slow moving and we don't get a real look at the "characters" (as I noted last week, I get it because of the rush-job the show's post-production schedule requires... it would be too difficult to include non-task related stories from the time between putting wannamodels up for elimination and the elimination ceremony). Man, if Frankie (tres annoying, no?) were up for elimination this week, he'd be so very gone. I sincerely hope that Jay leaves this week because I like both Aryn (she is part of the hilarious extra-marital Ronnie/Ben/Aryn sandwich... oh, dear, I wonder what Ben's wife thinks...) and Holly (in the words of Roxette, she's got the look).

American Idol: Zzzzz. What a terrible week of auditions. "Limited" by the one-hour running time each night, the show failed to feature much real talent, and the "freak" portions weren't even that terribly funny (more of just terrible). Ordinarily I'd be really happy about Idol's ratings decline... but not so much this season (no, I don't have money on it... yet...) With Idol no longer breaking 30 million viewers, it points to really, really bad signs about broadcasting television in general. We're pretty much guaranteed a post-strike world were the networks act more like cable and ordering precious few pilots to series (ordering, perhaps, more scripts of pilot scripts they like before giving the series order) and far smaller writing staffs on shows (so, yay to being a baby writer). Though, perhaps, a new development system will help Hollywood inch closer to being a meritocracy instead of a place where the shit and the gold both float to the top (and you know it does in the current system). I'm getting away from myself here... and with my foot squarely secured in my mouth.

Project Runway: Oh, Ricky. You cry even when you're complimented. You should've been booted episodes ago. Anyway, do we hear me complaining about Victorya getting auf'd?

Nip/Tuck: What's really left to say about this show? I wasn't even aware the show had set this episode up as a "we're going to kill someone" episode. So the (I guess) fake-outs with Julia's illness only bothered me inasmuch as they were just... blech. Shame the bring Gina back for two episodes (and to only have her serve as a plot device to wedge in between Christian and Julia) and kill her. Although I was definitely surprised by it. And a bit put off by the over-black "This is love" echo.