If You Like it Dirty Late at Night, Well....

 There's something about late night television that you should accept: no one gives a shit about Jay or Dave anymore. Jay's a terminally unhip schlub who stole Conan O'Brien's career and Dave, while much more palatable and edgy, is still getting up there in years and pulls the same tie-adjusting-slightly-corny tics and tricks he's been using for thirty years. I love you Dave, but I can only take two decades of the Top Ten not being very funny.

Plus the format is tired. Clapclapclap, monologue with jokes about something that happened two days ago, band plays filler, pre-taped bit, then big name guest comes out, ego stroke, small time guest comes out to plug book or TV show (because TV stars are C-list compared to film stars), then possible musical guest, good night.

So the rigamarole of the late-night talk show is depressingly familiar and hard to upend. I'm not a big Kimmel fan, although I loved the Lost specials he did when the show was going off the air. But he often feels like too much of a shill for ABC, like they take corporate synergy WAY too seriously. He pokes a little fun at the latest Dancing With the Stars castoff, but it's all a bit glossy for me. Jimmy Fallon is funny, amiable, cool, and young, but I'm not a big "funny song" kind of girl, and his energy is a bit nervous. Fallon does get points for coming up with original and fun stuff to do with his celebrities that don't include eliciting the same five stories from these actors that everyone on a press junket gets. One other problem with Fallon: he's on at the same time as the one guy who gives late night viewers a subversive, smart, and strange option (granted you can stay up late enough.)

Craig in his "poorly-lit basement"

Craig Ferguson has always been funny, intelligent, and self-deprecating. Late night guys have to be. But I knew he was really something special when he came on the air after his dad died. Ferguson improvs his monologues, so they can get a little tangential and silly; but this night, January 30, 2006 -- Ferguson spoke directly from his heart, eulogizing his father with a mix of rueful and hysterical stories and effectively introduced the audience to a vividly drawn picture of his beloved parent. For a variety TV host to open himself up like that, to turn his pain and grief into something universal and FUNNY….I was bawling and laughing and moved, profoundly. You can watch it for yourself here and here.

And so my dedication to this Scottish (now-naturalized) crazy person began, and no matter my work schedule I try to religiously watch him. Repeat viewing is rewarded by this show -- jokes carry over into the next night, sometimes for weeks, and there's a plethora of regular guests who have running gags (Kristen Bell, Lauren Graham, Chris Hardwick,) plus puppets who open the show (Sid the potty-mouthed bunny, Wavy the stoner cajun alligator,) and a gay robot  skeleton sidekick named Geoff Peterson. Gay. Robot. Skeleton sidekick.

Geoff is literally a stationary robot with a skeleton head, a metal mohawk, and a cheap suit draped with Mardi Gras beads. He has his own podium on stage, and as voiced by the exceptionally talented Josh Robert Thompson, he is the perfect representation of the silly slyness that Ferguson's show lives and breathes. It shouldn't work -- you can see Geoff's a bucket of parts cobbled together by Grant from Mythbusters, and he can't move very much, and he's got cold LED lights for eyes. But the writers, the voice, and Craig himself have imbued this inanimate object with a fucking soul, I swear to god. And Geoff has become integral to the show -- Thompson is off for two weeks right now, during which time they have plugged celebrities into his chair to be the voice of Geoff. Alfred Molina, Thomas Lennon, and Larry King all had a go last week. This week it's been ladies, and while Lauren Graham kinda bombed, Paula Poundstone and Angela Kinsey have saved some face since then. All of these performers gamely shared a desire to play -- to play along, to play with expectations, to play up the sheer strangeness of this late night experiment.

Larry King as Geoff - note the suspenders

The Late Late Show is the only television show of its kind that has won a Peabody award--for an hour-long interview with Desmond Tutu in which Ferguson displayed vast knowledge of South Africa's geo-political history-- while also staging awesome lip-synced numbers to punk songs in French and Duran Duran covers of "White Lines." The Late Late Show went highbrow and became "Le Late Late Show avec Craig Ferguson" for a week when Craig, Geoff, and Kristen Bell went to Paris and shot a week's worth of shows in and around the city. Mind you, there was zero real studio. They had no permits. They literally set up a card table on the sidewalk and slid through Versailles with socks on, because it seemed like the thing to do. And then the next day there's a "mouth organ" joke and an obscure Doctor Who reference. It's like a post-modern, Henson-less Muppet Show with more dirty jokes.

So if you are into the late-night talk show thing and have yet to give Craig Ferguson a go, please please do yourself a favor. Watch him, once, and tell me that he isn't the most original thing you've seen after midnight (outside of Adult Swim.) And watch some of the stuff from the Paris shows if you can't stay up that late. SO totally worth it.

Ovaries Abound in TV Land. And it is Good

We are officially in the swing of a full-on fall TV season, and it's tastier this year than last. (No shit, I think Nikita is the only show from last fall that I still watch.) A couple of cancellations so far (Playboy Club, NBC's Hank Azaria comedy Free Agents) with more to come in the next couple of weeks, but lots of shows don't suck. Some are even awesome: Person of Interest, Revenge and Hart of Dixie, to name a few, are all great or kick-ass or sweet. There's a little something for everyone.

I've been enjoying a lot of the stuff I've seen from a purely entertainment-driven point of view (it makes me laugh, or cry, or goes all twisty and cool,) but as is my way, I've also started looking at everything from the female-oriented-armchair-feminist angle and have stumbled into a moral quandary.

Do I watch a show with female leads if the show itself is complete and utter crap? If the characters attempt to be three-dimensional, do I owe it to my sisterhood to try to suffer through bad writing and ridiculousness in order to let the network know that I appreciate them putting women in lead roles? I think I know the answer to this (hell no I don't owe anything to anyone and we should never reward crap TV ever ever ever) but the initial quandary made me think of what I want from my female characters and how this year's crop of new and returning shows have depicted such complicated and wonderful (and terrible) women and girls so far.

There are more female leads on TV right now than I can ever remember seeing before, and a wide selection to boot. A lot of the time women are vacant cyphers or used to inspire envy or lust, or they're supporting players who exist to stroke the male lead's, er, ego. They're saintly grandmas, teen vixens, or (on the reality TV side,) shrill, gold-digging harpies with no discernible talent or skill (Real Housewives, I'm looking at you.) But in this season's scripted fare we have rich girls, broke girls, cops, flight attendants, talk show producers, surgeons, teachers, spies, moms, bartenders…all of our inimitable facets are represented, for the most part, except for the over size 8 crowd. Sorry, my beloved Melissa McCarthy, one overweight woman starring in a sitcom does not a fair playing field make. Especially when the gimmick of the show is that the leads are fatties.

You are amazing. I miss Gilmore Girls.

But I digress.

So I like to watch women on TV, and I want them to be as complicated and assured and occasionally insane as myself and every woman I've ever known. They can be hotter than anyone I know, because it's TV and that's how it rolls, but they must also be smart, or caring, or ambitious, or devilish, or all of those. I want women who are modern and independent -- women the Taliban would, like, totally go all sharia on. And I want them to be shown making decisions that women make, every day. 

With these standards in mind, I took a look at the women on my small screen this season and tried to figure out if it's positive progress for my gender or if the show runner has ever even heard of the Bechdel Test.

Grey's Anatomy is a show created by a woman, a rarity in TV, and seems to have an easier time  making its female characters complex. This season the bar has been raised, though, since (SPOILER!) Christina Yang actually followed through with an abortion. When main characters get pregnant on TV they either have a baby or a miscarriage, period. Even in 2011 abortion is too alienating for the mainstream, but to have Yang (a driven, ambitious surgeon with no desire to have children) come to term would have been so far out of character that it would've undermined everything we faithful viewers know about her. The fact that Yang's onscreen husband supported her no matter his desire for a kid, well, I don't know if men like that really exist. But it was done brilliantly.

Parenthood is a quieter, less showy family drama that assembles an amazing cast, but the standouts are Mae Whitman and Lauren Graham as daughter and single mother. Their relationship is codependent and real. Erika Christensen's portrayal of a career woman who can't have a second child is heartbreaking, Monica Potter's balancing act of work, unemployed husband, teenage daughter, autistic son, and newborn baby is superhuman.

They're BFFs. With weaponry.

Nikita is one of the rarest breeds of all -- an actiony/spy thriller with women at the head. The two lead spies: women. The head of the shadowy black ops organization Division: woman. The mouthpiece for Oversight, the politicians who keep Division in check: woman. Maggie Q (Nikita) is an action star in her own right, and she kicks the crap out of people in her own stunts. Lyndsy Fonseca is Alexandra, Nikita's protege and current enemy, and their relationship is the heart of the show. Nikita has a boyfriend, sure, but their romance is back burner stuff. The really gripping emotion comes from the women and their dysfunctional interaction. Like when Nikita breaks Alex's arm and shoots her (for her own good.)

Fringe has the distinction of having a female lead strong enough and compelling enough that she played three different characters last season. THREE. This year she's playing two, sometimes in the same episode. FBI Agent Olivia Dunham is repressed and icy with almost everyone, but she's also professional and smart and very, very good at her job. Actor Anna Torv gives Olivia the smallest hint of vulnerability, but not enough to ever make her a victim. JJ Abrams launched this show, the way he launched Jennifer Garner in Alias -- he seems to have a gift for writing deep women.

The Good Wife has plenty of male characters, but the most intriguing interactions are between Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski, and Archie Panjabi. When Baranski's liberal attorney makes time with a conservative hotshot and makes no bones about her politics: awesome. When Margulies rains hell down on Panjabi for sleeping with her husband: delicious.

NEW SHOWS!

There are only a few weeks to go on with these new programs. With some, like Charlie's Angels, I can't stomach the thought of watching any more just to see if the women are likable. I got exactly 9 1/2 minutes into the pilot before lines like "I didn't know my heart could hurt this much" made me turn it off and throw my remote at the screen. That show is, in fact, the reason I wrote this post in the first place. First class terrible, but did I owe it a full episode before I dismissed it? I'm going with no. I always give new shows two full weeks, sometimes three, to impress me or repel me. Always. I just could. not. do it. Luckily there are plenty of promising programs full of women with the potential to be authentic and compelling.

I like the hat. Suck it.

Prime Suspect has been a fantastic showcase for Maria Bello. She's closer to middle age than post adolescence, unlike most female stars on TV, and that alone is enough to make me watch. But then she's is dead sexy with her deep voice, fuck-you attitude, and general irritability. And it's all shot in New York, so, bonus.

Pan Am is about flight attendants in the '60's, sure, but this ABC show has depicted less sexism than the set-in-present-day Prime Suspect. While that may not be realistic, and the lessons Pan Am tries to teach about women's lib aren't exactly subtle, the women ARE the show. And aside from their lily whiteness (a problem 90 percent of TV shows share) the women show a decent range of personalities. And it's fun.

Revenge pits the Madeline Stowe's vindictive matriarch against Emily Van Camp's vindictive daddy's girl in a glossy, soapy showdown in the Hamptons. The backstabbing and plotting is like an 'roid rage version of what actual women do to each other on a regular basis. We should stop that.

Ringer stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as the TWO leads, a challenge to which she rises admirably. But this show loses points for making the only other regular female character a woman whose husband is cheating on her. With her best friend. After she gave him babies. Maybe a future episode has her setting their bed on fire.

Dr. Hart tends to a local--it's tick paralysis!

Hart of Dixie stars the lovely Rachel Bilson as a surgeon whose ambition got the better of her and kept her from developing any bedside manner whatsoever. So she ships herself off to Alabama to learn how to be nice to people. Refreshing to see a woman who doesn't fit into the "caring, communicative, sweet" category that stereotype dictates. Even if she is punished for her lack of empathy. And while her main rival is a woman, she also goes out of her way to treat patients who are girls, while subverting the good ol' boys network.

New Girl is cutesy and goofbally, but Zooey Deschanel makes her character Jess an individual with no real desire to impress anybody. A woman who would like to date but doesn't want to stop wearing yokel teeth for fun is an excellent example of a modern woman who doesn't make me want to gag. Unless she's singing to herself, because that grates. Take a point away for having Jess' best friend be a model, as if Deschanel were an ugly duckling.

Suburgatory has two cool girls in it so far, but the rest are pushy busybodies, Barbie-pink-fake-boobed-soccer-moms or their vapid offspring. Seriously, do high school girls still call other girls "lesbian!" for wearing military boots? Really?

Charlie's Angels. Don't know if these girls are awesome and layered like onions. Don't care. There are too many other shows to watch that have held my interest and gotten writers who were over the age of eight to craft their dialogue. Sorry.

I know I'm forgetting shows. A lot of them probably, since I haven't even touched cable. Women this year are rocking the bejeesus out of the small screen, and although there is zero improvement in female employment behind the scenes (boo) the world is seeing more even-handed and intriguing representation of women now than they were last year. Nothing bad about that.

Fall TV Time-Suck in 3..2..1!

The fall TV season is upon us, and it is probably my single favorite time of year. Yes, for reals. I've got a breakdown of the more interesting launches of the next few weeks, and if you want to check out a complete fall schedule for the networks, Entertainment Weekly has a good look at them.

A preface.

I watch more TV than anyone I know. I mean scripted television, the hard stuff, not the brain-cell-killing Jersey/Kardashian/Housewives candy-colored crapola*. I watch sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, dramedy, drama, procedural, docu-series, musicals, almost all of it. I've been obsessed with it since my earliest memories, when Greatest American Hero and Wonder Woman were being rerun in syndication and my mother watched shows that were over my head like Hill Street Blues and All in the Family.  I consider television to be the most challenging and relevant medium we have, and to create a brilliant TV series is to touch the gods of narrative and make them your bitches. Not every brilliant show is brilliant all the time, because to create 22 episodes of genius every year is an insurmountable task for even the most intelligent and ambitious writers. And the writers are the creative power in TV, more than anywhere else.

Unfortunately for these wonderful writers, the networks want moneymoneymoney, so scores of good-could-be-great shows are never given the chance to breathe and settle in to their writing staff and characters. So expect a bloodbath of cancellations before November -- when you are a big sci-fi/fantasy fan like me, you get used to your genre programs getting slaughtered in their infancy. RIP Space: Above and Beyond, Twin Peaks, Firefly, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, Caprica, Dollhouse, Life On Mars, etc. etc.

Gratuitous Whedon Photo

SO! I want you to feel safe taking a recommendation from me because not only am I a voracious consumer of the product, but I guarantee I will be watching every one of these new shows for at least 3 or 4 weeks, to see if they can make a go of it. If something's terrible, I will suffer along with you.

TEN NEW SHOWS THAT DON'T LOOK LIKE GARBAGE:

Ringer
Sarah Michelle Gellar is Buffy Summers. Period. BUT! She's also an incredibly deft actress, and she's been given a high-concept show in which she gets to play estranged twins (addict stripper and secretive socialite.) There are faked deaths, murders, and a lot of SMG-patented pointed glaring. Sounds just like our Slayer.
Premieres Tuesday 9/13 at 9pm on CW

Applegate and Arnett go gaga

Up All Night
Christina Applegate, Will Arnett, and Maya Rudolph are starring in this comedy about 40 year olds who give up their extended adolescence and have a kid. It's been made very clear in press reports that this show is less about the baby and more about a specific generation (mine) doing the kids thing late, and the situational comedy that comes from that. Whatever. The previews made me pee a little, and the stars are all at the top of their game. Not watching would be, in the words of Gob Bluth, "a huge mistake."
Series preview Wednesday 9/14 at 10pm on NBC

Kat Dennings is yum.

2 Broke Girls
Another comedy that looks as savvy and biting as a laugh-tracked show can be is this Kat Dennings vehicle from CBS. CBS comedies are hit-or-miss really, not super-edgy or groundbreaking, but not appalling. This one, about a blue collar girl and a formerly rich girl waiting tables and having shenanigans looks younger and more fun than anything the network has put out since How I Met Your Mother started. Dennings is delicious and rough, so let's hope the jokes stay fresh.
Premieres Monday 9/19 at 8:30pm on CBS

Pan Am
Did you know the employees of Pan Am (the only global airline in 1963, when this show is set) were enlisted in espionage for the US Government? Me neither. But the premise of this show is based on a real woman's experiences, so I'm intrigued by the concept. Pan Am is also an ABC drama, though, so there will be good soapy elements and family/relationship drama to keep it multi-dimensional. One thing that might bug me: no one will be smoking. In 1963. Ah, Disney.
Premieres Sunday 9/25 at 10pm on ABC

Prime Suspect
Cop shows are hard to do in a fresh way -- and while PS has an impeccable British pedigree (Helen frisking Mirren!,) American cops are harder, nastier, and carry more weaponry than their English counterparts. So this new version starring Maria Bello will reflect that in its portrayal of a New York detective with a big mouth, a big attitude, and very cool hat. To have a procedural drama from a female perspective is HUGE, particularly when the woman gets to be rough around the edges. Bello is an amazing actor, and her supporting cast is stellar (Aidan Quinn, Kirk Acevedo.) Plus Exec Producer Peter Berg did Friday Night Lights. Sold.
Premieres Thursday 9/22 at 10pm on NBC

Terra Nova

Jason O'Mara. Not hideous.

If only for the fact that I've been waiting to see this thing for over a year. Spielberg goes back to his dinosaur roots with a time travel sci-fi epic starring Jason O'Mara and Stephen Lang (the bad guy from Avatar.) The conceit: humans ruin the planet. A chink in the armor of the time-space continuum allows people to be sent ALL the way back. Like, dinosaur times. So humans begin resettling our planet in an effort to head off  the nightmare Al Gore warned us about. Why the past resettling doesn't change the state of the current devastated planet in real time is a paradoxical conundrum best answered by The Doctor. But that's another show. 
Premieres Monday 9/26 at 8pm on FOX


Person of Interest
Michael Emerson is singularly creepy, and it's not his fault. The characters he plays are always emotionally and mentally disturbed to the point where they can't possibly be viewed as much more than pitiful (see: Ben Linus on Lost.) So to see him as a zillionaire who teams up with Jesus Jim Caviezel to prevent violent crime….a thrilling opportunity. Caviezel is handsome, stoic, yet intensely vulnerable, and every word out of Emerson's mouth sounds like it has a dozen strings attached. And you hang on every nuance. From the mind of JJ Abrams, if you needed more convincing.
Premieres Thursday 9/22 at 9pm on CBS

  

Look how kooky I am! Glasses!

New Girl
Zooey Deschanel is a hipster cottage industry unto herself, but her personal cuteness has gotten in the way of her actual skill lately. A sitcom with her as a hip, kooky, and newly single girl who moves in with a group of dudes sounds like a perfect opportunity to get her comedic timing back on the front burner. The incessant promos over the summer killed every joke in the pilot, though, so a couple extra weeks will be needed to see if a) the jokes stay fun and b) the guy they got to replace Damon Wayans Jr. is any good.
Premieres Tuesday 9/20 at 9pm on FOX

 The Secret Circle
If you're into Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries or Supernatural, then SC is going to work for you. It's got young hot people. Witchcraft. Family secrets. Jealousy, hormones, and soapy sudsy goodness. The star, Britt Robertson, is lovely and intuitive as an actor, and Thomas Dekker (Sarah Conner Chronicles) deserves a hit show. This might be outside the wheelhouse of the average 30-something but y'all need to loosen up.
Premieres Thursday 9/15 at 9pm on CW

Once Upon a Time
In a small town in Maine, fairy tale characters are real people. They don't know who they are, but they exist. Gothic fantasy combined with character-driven drama, suspense, and an outstanding cast (Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison, Robert Carlyle, Lana Parilla) make this something that could be very, very, VERY good. The writers in charge are Lost vets, and genre scribe extraordinaire Jane Espenson is producing. Nerd-gasm.
Premieres Sunday 10/23 at 8pm on ABC

American Horror Story
Very little is known about this show from Ryan Murphy (yes, he did Glee, but he also did Nip/Tuck) other than it stars Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott, and Jessica Lange and it is supposed to be capital-s SCARY. And dirty. Just look at one of the posters, then go check out the teasers:

Premieres Wednesday 10/5 at 10pm on FX (cable!)

Annie Ilonzeh, Rachael Taylor and Minka Kelly are the new Angels

ALL THE REST:
Don't fret that you will never have time to see everything you want to see -- between  live viewings, On Demand, Hulu, and the network showing "Encore Programming" on Saturdays, it's easier than ever to access the stuff you want to watch. If you need advice or tutorials, let me know. I can effectively make time out of thin air when it comes to DVRing.

You may be asking "What about those sexy Charlie's Angels? Or the Playboy Show! The one with the, uh, Playboy stuff! Don't those make the list?"

No. The Playboy Club won't be as biting or satirical as it could be if it didn't have Hugh Hefner's approval, and it's way too easy to go uber-sexist within this premise. Plus, I can only handle one period drama with no smoking in it (see: Pan Am.) As for Charlie's Angels, I'll give it a couple weeks because I like girls who shoot people (on TV, people, relax) but I'm conflicted about Minka Kelly. It's her mouth. And the potential for sexism on this show is high, too.


And on any other list, there may be mention of the new supernatural cop show called Grimm. But Grimm is on Fridays at 9pm, opposite Fringe and Supernatural. No one wins that battle, least of all the newbie NBC show. On Demand viewing for sure.

Talking about the returning shows that are near and dear to my heart would take up even more of your eye-effort, so just know that I will be in nirvana once Fringe, Parks and Recreation, Community, Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Modern Family, The Good Wife, Chuck, and The Walking Dead all come back. And Sons of Anarchy already started. And this doesn't include mid-season launches. We'll do this again in January.

So get a babysitter and call in sick to work. We've got TV to watch.



*I'm not immune to reality TV's charms. I watch: So You Think You Can Dance, Project Runway, Top Chef and America's Next Top Model, and I liked The Voice a lot. I also like the shows where they remake your business or teach you how to better yourself in a non-plastic surgery kind of way. Or the ones where they build you a new bathroom.

On Doctor Who and Attractive Scots

David Tennant courtesy DreamWorks

I paid good money to see Fright Night, despite my belief that no one will out-sexy '80's Chris Sarandon (creepy-sexy, not sexy-sexy.) It was decent, happily, and written by Buffy scribe Marti Noxon, so it had smart dialogue. Colin Farrell did his best Nic Cage (seriously strange,) only hotter, and Anton Yelchin was as adept and adorable as he always is. The reason I put my butt in that seat, however, was David Tennant.  And it was worth every penny. Tennant played a Criss Angel type, a Vegas illusionist with goth trappings, and he owned every scene he was in. And the eyeliner! I could die! More thin Scottish men in leather pants, please. David Tennant might not be anyone you've heard of, but he's been Hamlet, and Barty Crouch in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Most importantly, he's my Doctor.

"Doctor Who." British TV show, broadcast off and on since 1963, and he's been played by 11 different actors--the character's body regenerates, conveniently. It's a thing. He's got a blue police box called the TARDIS that is really gigantic on the inside and can travel through time and space. Want to spy on Shakespeare? Sure. Visit New Earth in the year 5 billion and twenty three? OK, but watch out for the cat-faced nuns. The Doctor (his name isn't Doctor Who, never ever call him that) travels around the universe in the TARDIS, with human companion(s), saving some civilizations and damning others. He's like the sheriff. Of the entirety of space and time.

The show returns to BBC America on Saturday night for the second half of season 6. The first 7 episodes aired in April, ending on a crazy cliffhanger, but jumping right in is strongly encouraged! There are plenty of stand-alone mystery hours that don't require encyclopedic knowledge of the mythos. The show is, at its heart, classic sci-fi with fantasy elements, a bit of horror, and a new lesson every week about what it is to be human, or to have humanity. Easy to get.  And you get to look at this guy:

Matt Smith and the TARDIS

This is Doctor Who in his 11th incarnation, portrayed by Matt Smith since series 5 began last year. He's younger, naughtier, and the vibe of the show is edgier and more fairytale-esque than the Tennant years. Smith has a distinctly nutty-professor thing going on that is very, very appealing. The guy's like 25 and he gives you nothing but ancient soul and the weight of the world when he needs to. Then he goes and dips fish sticks in custard and you realize "Ahhh, he really is the whole wacky package." You immediately want to leave your dismal existence and climb aboard his police box. You want him to pick you. That's the essence of imagination, and as an adult it's difficult to suspend your pragmatism long enough to access that feeling without a little help.

Mention must be made of Alex Kingston, as the mysterious River Song, who is evidently the Doctor's great love (but due to time travel hoo-ha, he doesn't really know it yet,) and the superb Karen Gillan, as Amy Pond. She delivers willful intelligence with just a purse of her lips. She is funny, feisty, and utterly devoted to her husband, Rory, played with excellent comedic timing by Arthur Darvill. Darvill is the heart of the team, though, not just the funny yutz in the corner. The two actors have goofy, sweet chemistry, and to watch the Doctor watch Amy and Rory have a loving relationship has added extra dimension to every relationship on the show.

So to review: Doctor Who--TARDIS--Time/Space travel--Cool aliens--Bow ties.

He wears bow ties. They're cool. It's a thing.

Watch BBC America on Saturday night at 9:00, let me know what you think.

My Stunted Creativity is Your Gain

I spend entirely too much time with my nose to my smartphone, playing Yahtzee Adventure and lamenting my current career stallage, silently pissing and moaning about my lack of opportunity.
Today is the day I realized the internet is its own opportunity, and my idiot brain and idiot hands are all that is needed to create my own outlet for the ridiculous number of words that clog my head at any given moment on any given day. I say "idiot" because it's an obvious solution, an obvious fix, and I tend towards the Type-A-know-it-all class of folks, so…I loathe admitting that I've been my own enemy. Idiot.

Steve from Collider.com and me at Wonder Con

Truthfully, I LIKE getting in my own way. I must! I do it early and often. I secretly judge acquaintances who thrive on relationship drama, but I don't know that my perpetual procrastination and refusal to live up to my potential is really any better. I thrive on career drama. To my loving husband who is awesome: you really suck at giving me any bullshit to obsess over. Could you please consider a) smearing a random lipstick on your collar, b) telling me "you look fat in that," or c) smacking one of my friends on the ass? It would help get my mind off my work, or lack thereof. Thanks.

I've decide to throw my bag of self-sabotaging tricks out the window, though, and just do it, this, blogging-- for fun. I remember when writing and the idea of writing was fun before anything else. Hmph.

So this is what you're gonna get: some snark, a lot of geeky adulation and sincere fangirl wistfulness, and a deep love and understanding of television in particular. I'll include reviews and speculation and coverage of genre entertainment of all kinds, plus comic books, movies, fiction (like, real books,) and the artists that produce and create the bright and shiny escapism we all consume. I like to recommend huge swaths of books and TV shows, so expect dips into my library too.

I will eventually branch into the podcasting realm, because if there's one thing I'm better at than anything, it's talking. Consider yourselves forewarned.

Don't Get Your Nerd On Without Me

Comic-Con has descended on San Diego, geeks in a thick blanket over the city like locusts devouring a midwest crop. The geeks, my brethren, they gnaw at the new movie and TV footage unveiled there; they gnash their chompers at the bastardization of precious geek-verse commodities; their antennae wiggle waggle when they detect Olivia Munn from Attack of the Show anywhere nearby. These are my people, as my husband likes to remind me.

When I was a little kid I was positive I was going to grow up to have superpowers or be a vampire. And when I say positive, I mean pillowcase-on-the-shoulders, jumping off the couch, waiting for my mad flying skills to kick in. And why wouldn't it happen? I wanted it badly enough. I was a relatively well-behaved child, which is to say I had ethics even when I was being a brat. I could use my powers for good, not evil, with a couple of brief pit-stops for mischief or good-natured trickery. No super-villainy. As a vampire I would only feed on evil-doers, of course. And then I'd be able to amass a great fortune and travel the world and have long flowy hair and perfect skin. I would scrunch my face up and concentrate on moving that pencil over there with my mind. I would stay perfectly still and close my eyes and will myself to hear people's thoughts. Now I'm a good judge of character, and very occasionally I'm a little bit psychic, but I'm also visible and bound by gravity and of average strength. Not super.

All those people at Comic-Con? They aren't super either. Maybe it's that we're not willing to contain our imaginations. Maybe it's that we needed to fit in somewhere, and the best place we fit

is on alternate planets, in other galaxies, anywhere but here. Maybe we have a predilection for homemade costumes made from shiny synthetic fibers and a vast collection of Pogs we need to get rid of. It makes no difference, because the last thing a Comic-Con attendee is going to do is pass judgment on a person according to socially-mandated standards of "normal." If you get Green Lantern and The Green Hornet mixed up, though, stop drop and roll, dude. Get out of there.

I know Comic-Con is TOO BIG. I've been there. It's lines for years and crowds like you've never seen outside of countries with severe civil unrest; it's embarrassing to see some studios and execs pimp projects like freak show barkers. There are people at Comic-Con who have never even picked up a comic book, much less held one by its spine with gloves on. I don't give a flying fig. The purists are still there. The ones who tied the pillow case around their shoulders and jumped off the couch. I am them. We are a tribe.

Originally written 7.09

Megan Fox Can Do Whatever She Wants

Let's spend a minute, shall we, extolling the virtues of the non-manufactured movie star. The celebrity who refuses to let his or her publicist craft tidy little soundbites for public consumption that always contain the words "grateful," or "fortunate," or "team effort."

Let us praise the actors and actresses who don't seem to care one whit what reporters or media types think or blog about them; and who figure the fans of their movies will either like them as people or they won't. These are the people who seem the most authentic out of all the shiny happy Hollywood confections that are trotted out on our screens on a daily basis. They get irritated, and show it. They are perfectly comfortable with themselves (as much as anyone can be) and they don't hold back with the sardonic or the personal information just because their current film appeals to tweens. They are rarely apologetic, but typically VERY compelling on screen--probably because they let their insides show on their outsides already.

I'm talking about people like Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox from the Transformers movies. Shia is well known for running off at the mouth and offering up information that might make a less squeamish person urp in their Wheaties. I am not squeamish, though, and therefore find it amusing and, yes, strange, that he finds his mother the sexiest woman alive, or that he watched his parents have sex and smoke weed and engage in all-around bohemian activities. Megan Fox has already admitted to being bisexual and entertaining a serious crush on a stripper; she's claimed to essentially be a man in a girl's body; and she's talked about the fact that she loves smoking pot and doesn't get why everyone's so effing bent out of shape about it. Katherine Heigl from Grey's Anatomy is notoriously plain-spoken, and might have tanked her movie career because of that fact. But in a business that is molded and injected with artifice as a rule, even abrasive bluntness is an applause-worthy quality. Bloggers, media critics, and the like have called this sort of behavior in stars inappropriate, diarrhea of the mouth, yadda yadda; and I don't agree. Those critics seem to be trying to get actors to all fit in the same neat little box, where they act well and look good and try to avoid any pesky human foibles. Boo to that.

Now, this is where I make a distinction. There are actors who say what they want to, and never come off as inapporpriate. Take Tom Hanks. That guy doesn't give pat answers to anything, doesn't come off as generic or practiced--he comes off as the single nicest guy on the frickin' planet because he probably IS that guy. On the flip side, actors like Sean Penn say whatever the hell they want, too, but very easily project "I'm an asshole" with every answer because he's defensive any time anyone asks him anything, even if it's about ice cream or puppies.

Encourage spontaneity in our celebrities. Encourage spontaneity in yourself. Don't think about every single thing you say before you say it. Unless it's really racist or something. That's just rude.

Originally written 6.09

Idiot vs. Shrew--Place Your Bets!

These were my initial impressions of the Jon and Kate Plus 8 nightmare, summer of 2009:

I hate covering reality programming in my entertainment reports. Unless it's a competition show like American Idol, Top Chef, or So You Think You Can Dance, reality shows tend to leave me covered in an oily film that won't budge with any amount of Ajax and vigorous rubbing. So when the Jon and Kate Plus 8 drama started to unfurl a couple of months ago, I held off as long as I could.

I had seen the show, I was familiar with the archetypes represented by overbearing and bossy Kate and laid-back (catatonic?) Jon. Yes, she had a tendency to emasculate. No, he had very little idea what was actually going on at any given moment. The children are all very cute and age-appropriately irritating. Fine, capitalize on your ridiculous decision to bring sextuplets into the world. You can afford their therapy when they grow up. And then came the adultery and lying and cries of "woe is me with my huge house and motorcycle and free vacations--all these cameras are just too much!" And that's when it became a publicity juggernaut.

So now the Gosselins are doing the decidedly un-Christian thing and calling it quits on their marriage with no visible attempt to get counseling or outside help. The show will continue taping after a brief hiatus, since they owe TLC 40 episodes this year-- and we the viewer will get to watch these kids transition through one of the most difficult periods of their lives. It's just gross. TLC and both parents will shower them with more presents, more trips, more toys, in an effort to keep them happy enough to smile and giggle and act like kids who do NOT have freshly divorced parents. This whole situation and the fact that any of the Gosselin children will be able to see their parents' marriage implode on tape for eternity is how people end up drinking themselves to death, or getting married 7 times, or getting knocked up at 16. This is how people end up with tassles on their boobs with a stage name like Dusty or Blaze.

Jon's attitude on the "special episode" was ridiculous. He let Kate rule the roost, huh? Perhaps because she was the one who gathered together all of the disparate pieces of their lives, public and private, and kept them on track. Jon, in the meantime, acts out like one of the children when he feels slighted, instead of having a real live conversation with his wife. Maybe if he had spent more time reading and less time flirting in high school he'd be articulate enough to communicate his needs. Jon is going to end up one of those sad sack paunchy guys with a suspiciously full head of hair-plugged hair that attempts to fit into the Big City lifestyle and recapture his early 20's as if he had never contributed to the creation of 8 defenseless yet powerfully noisy small people. "Hey hey," he'll say all swagger and bratty frat boy attitude, and try to pass himself off as a swinging single who just happened to have some TV exposure once a long time ago. And then the girls will recognize him and throw drinks in his face and kick him in the shins because he's got 8 FRICKIN' KIDS and should act like it. He's an immature tool.

And the first person to come up with a reality show that blends that dating show The Cougar and a Brady Bunch style reality show tracking blended families should sign Kate up now. It'll be her weekend to have all 8 of hers, and she'll go on a group date with some random man that has 7 kids of his own and then they'll get married and film it and call it Kate and Dean Plus 15! or whatever. Before then she will have abruptly switched her public persona from one who is overbearing and mean to the one who wanted to work the marriage out, and she'll have climbed up on her cross and firmly nailed herself there.

And the kids will hate them forever.

Funny-looking and Hot NOT Mutually Exclusive

I have often been accused of being boy or girl crazy because of my ability to find beauty and sexiness in a lot of different people. Beauty is such a nebulous concept that it has to evolve and change and hinge on things other than facial symmetry or huge ta-tas, though, and I consider my tastes to be varied as opposed to indiscriminate. A woman can be less-than-thin, or have a strange nose, or a funny mole, and yet command a room when she walks in simply due to the power of her voice and carriage. A man can have sunken cheeks or flinty eyes or a prominent forehead and easily be the best choice for a hay-rolling you've ever met.

Men like Willem Dafoe, Robert Knepper from Prison Break (and the new season of Heroes, woo-hoo!) and sci-fi/fantasy staple Jeff Kober all have that dirty-sexy thing going on: they're rough around the edges, yes, but there's something going on with the voice, or the mannerisms that makes them incredibly hot to me. Most of the time it's a look in the eyes, like they could rip your clothes off before you even notice their hands are moving. And then when your clothes are off they make you their slave. Women have this going on too--Tilda Swinton is a perfect example of someone who straddles the line of androgyny in a way that intrigues me and makes me think she was born to seduce people. Maybe not people, maybe just me.

For clarification, Amy Winehouse is NOT the right kind of unattractive for our purposes--she's just too sad. Courtney Love--too sad. Sandra Bernhard--she's right up there with the best of the turn-the-lights-off-then-get-naked types of people. Mickey Rourke? Verdict's still out.

Originally written 4.09

Step Away From the Buffy

There are a few things I deem holy. Untouchable. So incredibly perfect in their creation that should anyone except the original creator decide to toy with it, I will personally spearhead the revolution. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of these holy things. I have neither the time nor the patience to explain exactly why the TV series with the funny name is so deeply ingrained in my consciousness; suffice to say that the characters are in my blood; the writer and creator, Joss Whedon, pulls words out of my head and strings them together in such a way that I look like a philistine; and the mythology is so layered, so analogous to the tormented adolescent existence that I am grateful, every day, for having had the TV show for 7 years. Now there are comic book tie-ins by Master Whedon, adding to the canon and allowing folks like me to continue to revel in the misadventures of the Scooby gang.

So what has my proverbial panties in a twist? This news story. The director of the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie (remember that suck-fest? Kristy Swanson? Donald Sutherland?) is going to take the conceit-- a Chosen one, fighting demons and vampires and all matter of undeadness-- and make a new movie out of it. Without Joss Whedon. Whedon wrote the movie, true--but watched as directors and producers turned it into something too Velveeta to even be called cheeseball. He then took it back and crafted what we know as Buffy from that point on. So the original director maintained some rights to the idea, obviously, and now wants to jump on the "vampires everywhere" bandwagon evidenced by the Twilight series, HBO's True Blood, the CW's new Vampire Diaries coming in the fall, and on and on.

To which I say, just try it. Scores of Whedon fans will revolt, there will be metaphorical blood in the streets, and her project will die a terrible death if she tries to tie this to the Buffy franchise in any way. Let it stand on its own, or try to get Joss in on the project, but never, never, NEVER bastardize my Buffy. And leave Angel alone while you're at it.

UPDATE: Variety is reporting that the head of Vertigo Entertainment, the studio trying to get this off the ground, is saying "Studios are looking for a franchise and vampires are relevant again." WTF? Money-grubbing-intellectual-property-raping jackass.

Originally written 3.09