Friday, November 16, 2007 Rant Archive
Cult leaders, vampires, violence … oh, my. While Mick (Alex O’Loughlin) does a little housekeeping by pulling bullets out of his limbs and body (yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that, either), Beth (Sophia Myles) is covering the execution by lethal injection of a cult leader who combines all the charm of strep throat with the people skills of Chuck Manson. Before Psycho Killer gets the needle, he promises that his reign of terror will continue, particularly against Audrey (Sarah Foret), the young woman whose testimony 14 years before got him the long walk in the first place. This turns out to be prescient, as Audrey now has an unwanted accessory: a long-haired stalker who casts the same shadow. Of course, the fact that said psycho has gathered a type of cult about him that call themselves his “family” ensures there will be a bunch of suspects to check out.
Anyway, Audrey is staying with Beth until the furor dies down a bit, and Mick is doing a little sleuthing at Beth’s behest. Soon enough, he finds a Web site listing all sorts of inside info on the people who put the psycho, ominously named Shepherd, in the pen. To Mick’s dismay, he finds Beth’s address. Thus warned, he puts on his superhero face and busts ass over to the apartment just in time to save Audrey from a Shepherd wannabe. An impromptu interrogation catered with Mick’s homemade knuckle sandwiches leads Mick to a Hollywood producer with past ties to Shepherd. Mick makes with the ominous, then spots a handy package mailed to the producer from Shepherd. Turns out that it’s Shepherd’s memoirs, which has a clue in it that implies Shepherd’s joined the bloodsucker nation. A little bit of followup confirms the worst, and now it’s a fang hunt.
Here we go again, god, that isn’t just a line from a White Snake song. The Winchester brother’s, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) are on the hunt for a vampire. They end up on the trail of a very hungry female that tells them she’s on some sort of drug. Some loser’s going from bar-to-bar telling stupid broads that he can give them the high of their life. Too bad the drug of his choice is vampire blood and he’s turning super hot sexy blondes into vampires. Wah-wah. After realizing what’s been going on, Sam and Dean head off to the bar scene where they wait for the male vampire/dealer to attempt to turn another girl.
In another part of town, crazy Gordon has broken out of prison and hunts down Bella with the hopes of tracking down and killing Sam. After threatening Bella’s life, Bella explains to Gordon it isn’t her life he should be appealing to and much rather, her bank account. Once Gordon realizes he cannot afford Bella, she makes him an offer he cannot refuse by asking for a priceless amulet in return for the knowledge of Sam and Dean’s whereabouts.
Bucolic rural setting. Creepy voices. Eerie lights. If there are pretty blonds and Kryptonians running around, it must be SMALLVILLE. After Kara (Laura Vandervoort) returns from a surfing trip, Clark (Tom Welling) starts hearing aforementioned voices and seeing eerie lights in the barn. Not to worry, though; it’s just Kara’s crystal. Clark grabs it, undoubtedly to interrogate the shifty little thing, and suddenly, zoop swoosh floop, he’s in the Fortress. Damn!
While the disembodied voice of Jor-El (Terence Stamp) warns him against doing anything with the crystal, Clark jams the blue Twinkie in the crystal console and waits to see what happens. Son of a gun, a big bolt of blue shoots out of the Twinkie, whips through Clark and deposits Clark’s mom Lara (Helen Slater) in front of him. Unfortunately, the blue Twinkie has another passenger, Jor-El’s obsessive brother Zor-El
The theme of this week’s episode of GREY’S ANATOMY was high school. As if we needed reminding that Seattle Grace is run by essentially the same set of social guidelines as your local public school. (I would reference GOSSIP GIRL but those kids are way more sophisticated then the GREY’S crowd; Blair Waldorf could eat Meredith Grey for lunch. If she ever ate lunch.) There’s the in crowd, with Derek Shepard as most popular and Meredith Grey as the mysterious beauty. There are the nerds who are too smart to care, like Christina Yang. There are the overachievers like Dr. Miranda Bailey. Yeah we get the point.
But the episode spends the whole hour driving it home. The inciting incident was a high school bus crash. Among the patients were; an outsider with a pencil through the eye and a loyal best friend, a bitchy pom squad captain who broke her ass, and Dr. Bailey’s high school crush, who is now a teacher.
This week on SCRUBS, no major bombs were dropped and no new relationships were forged. It was just an episode with a whole lot of funny.
Carla (Judy Reyes) dreams about Turk (Donald Faison), JD (Zach Braff), and Elliot (Sarah Chalke) trying to kill her, but the real nightmare is that the dream is in English. Fearing that she’s losing touch with her Dominican heritage, she spends most of the episode moping.
Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) is having is own identity crisis because he’s shocked to realize he’s lonely without his family. In a slight change of generic story devices, it’s Elliot who teaches Perry something instead of the other way around. Nice way to change it up there, writers.
Last week we left the Hickey brothers as the warden told them to find Frank (Michael Rappaport) and drag him back to prison, as he had escaped while under the supervision of Randy. All the while, Randy (Ethan Suplee) and Earl (Jason Lee) have been arguing over whom, of the two of them, is in charge. Joy (Jamie Pressly) has her own set of problems, as she agreed to be surrogate mother to her half sister’s child, but apart of their agreement was a natural birth, which includes no inducing labor.
Not surprisingly, the episode begins with Randy and Earl continuing to argue about who’s in charge. The warden (Craig T. Nelson) refuses to tell them who’s in charge so they basically duke it out. Clearly, Earl has the direction, range and attitude to lead the two, but Randy retorts by saying he’s wearing the badge so according to the laws of the land Randy’s actually in charge. Randy then shows off the fancy German shepherd he has acquired to help them track down Frank. Earl tells him having a dog with a giant “Prison K-9” harness on it isn’t exactly low key, pointing out another flaw in one of Randy’s plans. Basically, the first part of the episode goes on like this.
The unthinkable happened on 30 ROCK.
No, it didn’t suddenly get the ratings it deserves. Some of you still don’t listen to me and watch the show every week. I have your names, and it’s only a matter of time before I get your addresses. So beware. Where was I? Oh, yes, the unthinkable.
What I mean by unthinkable was that the ever liberal Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) ratted out an Arab neighbor to Homeland Security. And that’s not even the worst thing to happen this episode. No the most evil thing was that Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), currently head of NBC and the presumptive heir to the throne at GE, slept with a Democrat. How could he?
The first part of the adventure begins when Liz comes home from work and discovers the mailman left a package at the wrong door. It really should have gone to Raheem Haddad, the new neighbor across the hall. When she brings it to him, he refuses to shake her hand. This, of course, is a sign that he’s a militant who degrades women. When she looks over his shoulder, she sees a map of the United States with pins in what looks like key strategic points.
Of course, she’s thrown for a loop, so when he introduces himself the best she can come up with is “Raheem, that’s my mother’s name.”
Jean-Robert was voted out last week and the remaining contestants were quite pleased with themselves. Except Denise who wasn’t informed by her alliance that they were turning on one of their own. She rightly feels on the outside of her group and should be guarding her flank a little better. Courtney described camp without Jean-Robert like Christmas morning and then she and Frosti spoke in baby voices to each other.
But with Jean-Robert gone, who will be the new villain? Peih-Gee? The Stewardess? Maybe the Stewardess but that will take a while. This season is sorely lacking in that one guy you love to hate. Jean-Robert never really delivered and now the field is barren. As long as we have touched upon problems with this season, let me mention a few others. What happened to making these people suffer?
The difference between reading a book and watching a screen adaptation of it is imagination. Reading, you filter the character through your experiences and preferences. The characters look and walk and talk the way you want them to, the way you interpret the writer’s words. The author may create the characters, but the reader defines them.
In movies, however, you’re limited to watching. The story is what it is on the screen; viewers can’t shape it to meet their own expectations. Consider the line, “This is going to be a lesson in love.” In the novel, LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, it is spoken by Dr. Juvenal Urbino to his virginal bride in a context that can reek of passion. When spoken by Benjamin Bratt in the film LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, it provoked gales of laughter in the audience.
And therein lies the problem of adopting a novel to the screen, generally, and with adapting LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, specifically. The way that scene appeared on the screen, no one could imagine passion.
At its heart, CHOLERA is a story about the kind of mind-numbing, heart-breaking love every human yearns for. In late 19th Century Columbia, a young Florentino Ariza falls deeply and madly in love with Fermina Daza (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) the moment he spies her through the window of her family home. He pursues her with the ardor of youth, sending romantic letters through her duena, who helps arrange secret meetings between the pair. Eventually, Fermina accepts his proposal: “I will marry you if you promise not to make me eat eggplant.”
So, this secret agent thing is working out to have mixed results for the lovely Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan). On the one hand, she loses track of a drop, not because the involved parties are slicker than goose poop but because she gets distracted talking on the phone with her CIA beau. On the other, she puts her bionics to good use in finding and retrieving the drop and putting a hurt on the dude. The subject of the drop: high-caliber rounds with depleted uranium tips engineered for a rifle with an effective range of two and a half miles. Yowza.
Anyway, said rounds are apparently intended to whack a genocidal African dictator who is making a visit to the states, so Jaime and Antonio (Isaiah Washington) get to take part in the security detail. This doesn’t make Antonio, who has seen this dude’s governmental wetwork up close, too happy, and he doesn’t mind sharing his feelings.
I owe PUSHING DAISIES an apology. So far I have given the show props for an amazing production design, lauded its giddy approach to the specter of death and applauded the casting. Tonight the show delivered on unanswerable moral questions, giving pause to thoughts outside the mainstream without treating them as simple punchlines.
I never thought this show would climb to this complex height. I never gave it credit for that possibility. I am sorry.
Tonight’s caper starts with the death of Harold Hundin (Joel McHale of THE SOUP fame), the president of a prestigious kennel club. The club offers a reward for information leading to the capture of his killer. Enter Ned (Lee Pace), Chuck (Anna Friel) and Emerson Cod (Chi McBride). When we last left this group Ned had just saved Olive Snook (Kristen Chenoweth) and she rewarded him with a kiss. Olive is pining for Ned and he is taken with Chuck. It seemed to be a painful, predictable, mundane love triangle. But this has to wait on the immediate issue of a reawakened Harold who points the incriminating finger at his wife.
I’m trying to equate what it’s like to watch DIRTY SEXY MONEY. It’s not necessarily a car crash where you can’t look away, because there’s a certain amount of tragedy in that. With DSM, it’s not necessarily tragedy. It’s just … bad TV. But for some reason, I just can’t get enough of it. Does that make me a bad person?
Maybe it’s the same as with these “reality” shows that are popping up all over MTV and VHI and others. I hate this crap. Never watch it. I don’t even know what channel MTV is on my cable box. But I hear people talk about these shows like they’re the greatest thing ever. I’ve seen pieces of “The Hills,” and I’ll tell you, that show is so friggin’ stupid. I could feel my brain cells dying during the commercial breaks. But people can’t get enough of it.
I felt the same way on Wednesday night. As we hit the midway point, I checked my DVR to see how much was left, and actually let out an audible “yes” when I saw there was another 30 minutes of Darling drama left. God I’m a dork.
Chef Ramsey heads back to New York, in tonight’s installment of KITCHEN NIGHTMARES and it isn’t pretty. After last week’s offering, I’m getting a little tired of watching arrogant chefs tell Gordon where he can stick it, but it appears I’m in for it again, because tonight’s restaurant is run by a family that is having problems with one of their members. It appears that he thinks he’s running the show all by himself. Thank GOD Gordon is around to slap the piss out of his attitude. Now, if I could only get Chef Ramsey to come to my place of employment and have a little chat with my boss.
Finn McCool’s is an old-fashioned Irish pub with an all too common problem. Buddy, the patriarch of the family, is stuck in the middle of his two sons and their clashing personalities. Brian is the cocky, slip-shod head chef, and Jason is the under-achieving bar manager who doesn’t feel his job entails anything more than serving drinks. Meanwhile, the whole family is about to lose their life-savings and livelihood unless they listen to every word Gordon Ramsey says and puts every piece of his advice into practice. Given the track record of KITCHEN NIGHTMARES thus far, I don’t see that happening, at least not without a fight. It’s funny how fast their tune changes, after Chef Ramsey gets into town. The opening always shows a group of people who are desperate for Gordon’s professional help, but within minutes egos inflate and angers flare, and tonight was no exception.
How strange must it be to be one of the girls remaining on AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL? They are all certainly beautiful, the sort of girls who were probably told their whole lives “Hey! You should be a model!” And now here they are, after sending in some B.S audition tape, kind of actually modeling. But not just modeling. They are also thrust into some absurd situations that have little to do with the grind of being a real model. Tyra isn’t teaching these women to model, she is teaching them to supermodel.
I don’t think the Eastern European girl who lives downstairs from me is any designer’s muse. She is very thin and beautiful, and probably makes a nice living. But I doubt anyone ever gave her lessons in how to be “fierce.” Tonight on ANTM, the girls are given as a challenge the chance to be a designer’s muse, at L.A’s version of New York’s Parson’s, (where PROJECT RUNWAY takes place.) I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the challenge is a backwards version of a PROJECT RUNWAY episode; that show premiered its fourth season last night on Bravo. I wonder if it was a little competitive rub from team Tyra.
The kids learn another big lesson, in tonight’s episode of KID NATION, and it isn’t an easy one at that. Equality is something adults haven’t managed to conquer as of yet, so maybe if we teach our children about it a little bit sooner than we were taught they will have more success. One of the biggest things the pioneers learn about equality is that it isn’t an easy thing to achieve. That being said, by taking this challenge on at such a young age, they are one step ahead of the game. But that isn’t the only meaty subject matter the kids have to deal with tonight, because the town council make yet another unpopular decision that affects every district.
Once again, the kids are threatening a mutiny, thanks to a decision made by the town council. What these kids, and many adults, don’t understand is that it isn’t always easy to look out for the well fair and well being of a large group of people.