Archive: December 2009 (51-54 of 54)

Dec 2 2009 09:09 AM ET

'Sons of Anarchy' season finale: A great season, a great finale... with a disappointing ending?

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Categories: Television, TV Last Night, TV Recap, TV Review

Sons of Anarchy finished out its superb second season with… something of a disappointment.

Before I get to my misgivings, let’s grapple with the very good stuff. The extra-long episode began [SPOILER ALERT] with the season’s two big bads, Zobelle and Westin, being set free from jail — Westin because Chuck’s testimony is deemed “unreliable” (darn those criminal convictions) and Zobelle because… he’s an FBI informant, a rat! This was an excellent, logical reveal for a guy like Zobelle, who sells out absolutely everyone including his daughter (more on her later).

ATF agent Stahl made sure this bit of info was leaked, since if her case was getting screwed up, she figured why not throw this into the volatile mix and see if she could end up getting Cameron and the gunrunners after all? So once opposing forces such as SAMCRO, Westin, and the Mayans heard this, there was lots of jostling to see who was going to prevail and who would get revenge. The scene in which SAMCRO and Mayan bikes lined opposing sides of Main Street, with Deputy Chief Hale’s cop cars sitting on the white line in the middle, was like a Western-movie showdown moment. (Geez, I can’t imagine how much the property values in Charming must have sunk over the past two seasons… ) READ FULL STORY »

Dec 2 2009 08:35 AM ET

'Scrubs' season premiere: 'Gather 'round, murderers'

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Categories: Sitcoms, Television, TV Recap, TV Review

Is this the season that will kill lots of fans’ fond memories of Scrubs? It could be.

Last night’s back-to-back new episodes showed us how the new Scrubs will work. Or not. The hospital has been replaced by a university campus, where J.D., Turk, and Dr. Cox, among others, teach. For the moment. (Zach Braff is only committed for six episodes, for example.)

Filling up time and space are new young students, most prominently Lucy (Kerry Bishe), a young, intimidated, slightly dim woman — oh, let’s just say it: she’s like the earliest incarnations of J.D. or Sarah Chalke’s Elliot, and as such is both wan and verging on irritating. So far. These things can/might change/improve. And I don’t blame Bishe, who does the best she can with the material she’s been handed.

I snickered once during the first episode: when Cox referred to Lucy as “91″ — a snap at House‘s “13″ — but also his ranking of Lucy, whose numbers only went further down on his scale as the half-hour proceeded. (The title of this review is, of course, the way Dr. Cox greeted his new students.)

In the second episode, it became clear that J.D.’s wacky-voiceover narration will be joined and soon replaced by Lucy’s wacky-voiceover narration. I laffed (that’s inside-my-head laughing) two times during these 30 minutes: at the way new character Cole (played by Dave Franco, the younger brother of some guy who’s guest-starring on General Hospital) puffs up his inflated ego and calls himself “King” Cole, and at the way Eliza Coupe’s Denise, now promoted to major-character status, referred to her waning sex-drive by saying, “I’m losin’ wood.” (Hey, I like such crudeness when it’s quick and emanates from an unexpected source… )

Not so funny: the two campus security guards, cliche bumblers, one of whom refers to his tranquilizer gun as “Megan Fox.” These guys would seem more at home in Paul Blart: Mall Cop II.

Now, creator Bill Lawrence has said he wanted to use a different title for this version of the show. My TV-historical suggestion would have been AfterScrubs, but apparently he had to settle for ABC allowing him to call it Scrubs [Med School]. (Is this is first time a network show has used brackets in its title? In any case, it’s not as though Lawrence is not aware that he’s engaging in a tricky transition, trying to please long-time Scrubs fans while fashioning a new series. So far, I’d say Lawrence’s writers will get a season out of this, and then join Lawrence in the now-juicier bagatelle that is Cougar Town.

In Jennifer Armstrong’s preview-post about Scrubs‘ premiere, a lot of commenters expressed the wish that Scrubs had just ended after its finale last season. That’s how a lot of you wanted to see it go out: on top, creatively, according to a lot of posters.

Now that you’ve seen the new Scrubs, what do you think?

Dec 1 2009 08:25 AM ET

Tareq and Michaele Salahi: 'Our lives have been destroyed.' Well, that's a start...

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Categories: Controversy, Reality TV, Talk Shows, Television, The President

Tareq and Michaele Salahi — the couple Jon Stewart on last night’s Daily Show dubbed “The Real A–wipes of Washington D.C.” — told Matt Lauer on The Today Show this morning, “Our lives have been destroyed.”

Well, we can only hope that’s just a melodramatically exaggerated signal that the Salahis will be denied the fame they seem to seek so shamelessly and desperately. “We were invited, not crashers,” said Michaele.

The couple told Lauer that their appearance at a White House state dinner has been “mischaracterized in the media and other paparazzi forums.” Ha! In one bumblingly inarticulate phrase, the Salahis summarized their dubious triumph: Their story, which due to the underlying seriousness of its creepy reality-TV subtext, has rendered serious media such as The New York Times and other print and online publications extensions of the paparazzi. It’s giving the Salahis their well-dressed moment in the spotlight.

How do they plan to stretch these moments of fame? By telling The Today Show that they can’t go into details about how they were admitted to the White House because they’re “working with the Secret Service” and its “timeline” in investigating them. In other words, our lawyers said to get in front of a prominent camera and then shut up.

But they also assured Lauer that they possess “documentation” that “you’ll get a chance to see,” which the Salahis believe will vindicate them. As the couple sat in a D.C. studio being interviewed by Lauer in New York, the key sentence followed:

“We are looking forward to coming up and seeing you.”

Yep, you can be sure if there’s one thing the self-described “devastated” couple (they sure looked content to me) is looking forward to, it’s getting on camera again.

No word this morning on whether these well-dressed “idiots,” as Jon Stewart called them, are still in contention for a spot on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of D.C. That’s a tricky question Lauer doubtless had to sidestep, since Bravo is part of the NBC corporation. In any case, I’ll take the admission that Lauer elicited from the Salahis — that they’re “sad, devastated” — as a lie that was betrayed by their eager eyes as they gazed lovingly at the camera.

I’ll give Jon Stewart the last word. Note the great guest appearance by Jim Gaffigan as old-school journalistic tut-tutter “Edward R. Brokaw-Amanpour”:

(And you can follow me on Twitter.)

Dec 1 2009 07:28 AM ET

'House' and 'Lie To Me': A good night for two good characters

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Categories: Television, TV Last Night

Back-to-back character studies last night: First, the Wilson-centric episode of House was an excellent showcase for Robert Sean Leonard to expand upon the wry mannerliness of his oncologist with a heart (or, last night, liver) of gold.

After that, on the ever-improving Lie To Me, Tim Roth took his Cal Lightman to a place where Lightman and his behavioral savviness couldn’t help but shine: gleaming Las Vegas.

The result was a neat contrast. The Wilson plot played up the doctor’s kindness, his alert sensitivity to others’ behavior. When he diagnosed a patient’s new symptoms simply by noticing a cold sore on the mouth of this patient’s girlfriend, Wilson crowed, “I had a House moment!” But we were meant to understand that it was really a Wilson moment. Accused of being a “doormat” — a label the ever-modest Wilson even applied to himself — Wilson was the most welcoming doormat this House has had in quite a while.

Lightman could not be more different from Wilson. The way Roth inhabits him, Lightman is all about invading other people’s spaces — when he enters a room, he really sprawls, stretching out in a chair, letting his limbs flop with insoucient confidence. For someone who’s an expert at body language, Lightman uses his own body to own every inch of the TV screen.

“Vegas doesn’t bring out the best in Cal,” said Kelli Williams’ Foster, but of course she was wrong for fans of the show. Hired to suss out the perpetrator of a kidnapping plot, Lightman was in his element: surrounded by professional liars in this episode directed with the typical zip of Elodie Keene. These included wizardly magician and David Mamet fave Ricky Jay. But Roth, fast becoming a peerless prime-time ham, was never upstaged by the murmuring Jay. Whether bedding a female poker player or lying in wait for a possible criminal by… well, lying in the back of a car with Mikhi Phifer’s Ben Raynolds as though a stake-out was an occasion for a nap, Lightman was the coolest cat ever imported from Britain.

Did you watch House and Lie To Me last night?

(There’s now a complete House recap on EW.com, and follow me on Twitter.)

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