TV Monday TV Review TV Fall TV Update

Last week, I gave the lowdown on the television programs that seemed to have promise for the fall, and the programs that I had yet to evaluate. This week, I'm kind of tv'd out, but I'll give an update for those who want to be saved the trouble of watching any television themselves.

Continuing Series:
Saving Grace. I'm still TiVoing it, but I still haven't watched any more episodes than the first. Does that mean it wasn't gripping? Or that I've been too busy watching other things? As with library books (which I read in a fairly timely fashion) over purchased books (which, if I don't read them the evening of the day they were purchased, sit on my shelves indefinitely, unread), I don't watch them now because I can always watch them later.

Heroes. Still watching it, still caught up in it. Still get unpleasant shivers when I see Sylar, now called Gabriel. Still don't care at all about the Nicaraguan twins. Still find the Cheerleader whiny, but don't trust her new beau further than I could fly. Still want Molly Walker to get killed off early in the season. More Matt and Mohinder! More Monica! More Peter (but let him not have lost his sense of Right along with his loss of self). Did everyone in The Photo have Abilities, or just some of them? And what is Bob's last name?

My Name is Earl and Gray's Anatomy. What can I say? One is sexy and involving, and the other is hysterical. Guess which is which? (Here's a hint: Ethan Suplee is not sexy.)

New Series
Despite other intentions, I gave up on Journeyman and Bionic Woman after only two episodes. (Which is not fair, because I don't like the first two episodes of Buffy.) I've read that the protagonist in Journeyman is tempted to have an affair with the love of his life, who died before he married his current wife (don't you just love time travel?). This might make the show more interesting, but I think I'll live a long, full, chronologically monotonic life without exploring that particular story.

Moonlight: I am still TiVoing this, and I haven't given up on it, because the star is (blush giggle) so pretty -- I just want this show to work. But it's overly serious and too obviously written, so I doubt I'll last more than another week.

Life. Like Saving Grace, episodes of this are collecting on my TiVo, but I haven't gotten back to any since the first. People who like the tv I like, like this show, so I expect it's pretty good. I just don't watch many cop shows. Wednesday nights.

New shows I really like.
Chuck. A computer nerd has all the secrets of the government accidentally fed into his brain, so now the CIA and the NSA are dogging his steps (because he's the only one who knows everything). A wildly improbably premise, but entirely enjoyable series. How could you dislike a comic spy thriller that references Zork, by name, twice in the first episode? With a protagonist who is genuinely smart, and also kind? With Adam Baldwin (of Firefly) as the tough NSA agent undercover in a minimum wage job at a Best Buy, irony lodged in his every line-delivery? The critical reviews are reasonably good, but there is joking about the Firefly curse, so watch it soon before it's canceled. Monday nights before Heroes.

Pushing Daisies. The second episode was as bizarre and technicolor as the first. Someone in the lists decided the show is a metaphor for sexual relations in a time of AIDS, but I think that's hokum. I still like it, but it's just too weird, like a comic version of Twin Peaks, so I don't think it'll be around long. Wednesday nights.

Blood Ties. Now here's a vampire series worth watching. It is based on the Tanya Huff books about a Toronto P.I. who works with a 450-year-old vampire, the son of Henry VIII (Henry Fitzroy). I like the characters (she's believably tough, the vampire looks 23, but acts believably old, they have an interesting tension between them -- that comes from literary, rather than television, tropes). I like that it is a show about the woman, not about the vampire (thank you, Lifetime Channel. I take back all the sneery things I've ever thought about a woman's tv channel in the past). I like that it is filmed in Toronto (and looks genuinely cold) with mostly Canadian actors. It's not perfect, but it is good enough to remind you how bad other shows are (cf. Moonlight).

Blood Ties actually started last spring -- the first series (of 12 episodes) is available on iTunes or for free at the Lifetime Channel (streamed, so you have to watch it on your computer). I've been catching up. Friday nights, late, on Lifetime.

Other shows
I watched Aliens in America, (Mondays) which is getting good reviews, and it was good. But I have my half-hour comedy slot filled (and I'm not interested anymore in coming-of-age stories). Still haven't watched any 30 Rock, but since I have my quota for comedy, I probably won't. And I've read a couple recent bad reviews of Friday Night Lights, so I may save myself the couch-potato-ness and skip it, as well.

Australian Rules Footballers as Historical (Fictional) Characters

I thought I'd bring up out of a commentary conversation a return to the question of who would play Graham (Gabriel) Mallett in a filmed version of Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles. I suggested Kevin McKidd. Kate suggested a player for Melbourne or Essendon. As it turns out, we have a reader who knows her Australian rules footballers. (I, on the other hand, don't even know for sure what that is -- rugby? or what Americans call soccer?) Anyway, she proposes three possibilities. Are any of these the man you meant, Kate?

Mark Johnson

(Standing with a possible Jerrott, were we casting the whole movie with sports stars.)






James Hird

Looking suitably pensive in this photo.









And Dustin Fletcher as a battered Gabriel.







I see, from other photos at the linked-to sites, a ball that cannot be a soccer ball, so I conclude we are talking rugby. You learn something every day.

By the way, the links are worth going towards if only to experience true Hogwarts-like moving photos. On each player's profile, when you first log in, is a running short video of the player. Something about the way they work remind me strongly of the effect in the Potter movies, and I found them strangely off-putting, muggle that I am.

Coolest Globally-Connected Time Waster

When the developers of Blogger were testing to make sure that users could upload photos to their blogs, they developed a little program that would display whatever was being uploaded to Blogger at that moment, from anywhere in the world. The developers then just left the screen turned on, because it's kind of mesmerizing. And because it's mesmerizing, they flipped it around so that anybody can see it. It's Blogger Play, and it's a never-ending succession of photos. It's hard to explain what is so interesting about it -- maybe it's because the majority of the uploads are not in English (you can click a "Show Info" button that gives basic information about the blog each photo is linked to).

Give it a try.

Ready to Rent

.... rent the Angle Nail Hammer, that is, from Home Depot. This is the tool we need to pin the porch boards onto the supporting struts.

Today we finished with all the supporting structure. I slightly exaggerated yesterday's prediction of "only an hours' worth left to finish". It is all soporifically boring (and I'm amazed that you're still coming back to read the blog, after posts about this project), so I won't go into the details, but trust me, the porch is well shored up. I seriously believe it could withstand an earthquake (well, a small one). Now we have only to secure one additional strut -- for attaching the short boards -- and then put in the porch boards, 3" x 7' at a time. I'd say it won't take long, but that would jinx us.

In the photo, Andrew is planing the frontmost board to make it the right height for the floorboards (remember the slope from door to stairtop?). Both of us are so tired of this particular adventure that we ran out of steam about 4 this afternoon. Andrew switched over to the much more exciting project of adding electricity to the under-porch cellar.