Your Emmy Choices

I had intended to post on the first episode of Survivor: Guatemala Friday but I was basically feeling like crap most of the day - one line report on the show: one of the most gruelling opening challenges ever; one team had lots of problems, one cast member really shone, sorry to see Jim go but he was the only real choice. Hopefully on Saturday I'll have a review on the new CBS science fiction suspense series Threshold. Just a little teaser - CBS has set the bar really high for the other networks.

So here are the shows and people who you - the readers of this blog - believe should win at the Emmys this year.

Outstanding Drama Series
Lost

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series
Hugh Laurie (House)

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series
Mariska Hargitay (Law And Order: Special Victims Unit)

Outstanding Comedy Series
Arrested Development

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series
Zach Braff (Scrubs)

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series
Marcia Cross (Desperate Housewives)
Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm In The Middle

Outstanding Reality Competition Series
Survivor

Outstanding Made For TV Movie
The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Miniseries or Movie
Geoffey Rush (The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers)

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Miniseries or Movie
Blythe Danner (Back When We Were Grown-ups)
S. Epatha Merkerson (Lackawanna Blues)

I don't know how I'll handle the Emmys. I might make a couple of posts during the telecast (computer is in another room from the TV) or I might just do one major post after the event - or I might try both.

Poll Results - Outstanding Drama Series

The biggest turnout yet for my polls has produced a result which is just about what I expected. Twenty votes were registered and the concensus pick for Outstanding Drama series is...

Well let's start with who it's not first. Tied for fourth place, with one vote (5% of respondents) each are Deadwood and The West Wing. Tied for second place with four votes each (20% of votes) are Six Feet Under and 24. However the winner, with a whopping ten votes and 50% of the support is Lost. Which was, in result if not in actual returns, about what I was expecting.

I'm not sure exactly why The West Wing was nominated this year despite the fact that the show did have an upswing in the quality of the shows when they began the primary season campaigning to replace President Bartlet. It helped that they had likable and recognisable actors in the form of Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda, but let's admit to the fact that the show hasn't been the same since Aaron Sorkin left. For all the grief he put them through, the worst thing that NBC and Warner Brothers ever did to the show was to replace Sorkin with John Wells. I was somewhat surprised that Deadwood didn't receive more votes from people in this poll since in my opinion (having seen all of one episode) it is a superior show to Six Feet Under. Maybe it was the cussing. I actually think that 24 slipped a bit in this past season, which is another way of saying that I think season three was better. Or maybe that's just my reaction to the show's over enthusiastic embracing of torture as an every day - well in the case of 24 every hour - event. I still think it was probably the second best drama out there and if it weren't for the existence of Lost it should win - but probably wouldn't. Emmy politics are odd that way.

But of course this is the year of Lost and I will go out on a limb and predict that it will win in all or almost all of the categories it is nominated in. The show is exhibiting a perfect mix of characterization with writing. The show combines personal relationships with mystery, doling out answers to each in miniscule rations. It is a series where continuity is an essential element and which asks the viewer to remember what has gone before. It is an amazing piece of work.

I haven't got a new poll question right now, so I suppose I'll leave these results up for a bit. Saturday night I'll post "our" list of Emmy winners so we all can see how well vox populi compared with what the people who actually have a vote think.

Not A Review of Head Cases

So here's the thing. I was going to write a review of Head Cases for the blog, seeing as how it was the only new series to debut on Wednesday night, but I decided not to do it. I've got the notes and I'll write up something next week when I hopefully (given the disruptions created by coverage of a George W. Bush speech tonight this may in fact be a forlorn hope) I'll be able to see the second episode. The trouble is, you see, that watching the first episode of Head Cases isn't going to let me review the series just that first episode.

Let me explain. For a lot of TV series the very first episode is reflective of what the show will be like next week or ten weeks from now. Details might change but the basic ideas and basic concepts, and the basic qualities will remain the same. The War At Home will be as putrid an example of television comedy in thirteen weeks - if the Vox Dei in the form of the Nielsen ratings allows it to last that long - as it was in the very first episode. Similarly, unless Bones undergoes some retooling to strengthen the supporting characters - or eliminate some or all of them - it probably won't change that much over the length of its run. That's not exactly the case with Head Cases. The first episode is not representative of what is to come in the series.

In Head Cases Chris O'Donnell plays Jason Payne a hot shot lawyer whose personal life is going down the sewer and who is suffering anxiety attacks as a result. After his wife throws him out for missing an appointment with their son's school psychologist Jason suffers a nervous breakdown sending him to a very posh asylum for a couple of months. When he gets out, not only doesn't his wife want him around but the law firm where he was a rising star fires him, essentially because he went nuts. There's part of a scene where they explain why he was fired where I'm not sure if what we're seeing and hearing is real or part of Jason's illness. Jason has been paired by his psychiatrist with another patient - a low rent lawyer named Russell Schultz, although everyone just calls him Schultz. In simple terms Schultz, played by Adam Goldberg, has a serious anger management problem - he likes to hit people who make him mad and just about everyone makes him mad. A major focus in the first episode is Payne getting his revenge on his former law firm by trying and winning a big case against them - with the help of Schultz. At the end of the episode they become partners with an office near the beach.

This is fine. I like O'Donnell, an actor who was riding high before he did the two Batman movies although apparently his absence from film was at least partially voluntary. I like Goldberg - he looks like he should be a low rent lawyer. The problem is that the series isn't going to be about Jason Payne getting his revenge on his old firm, it's going to be about the partnership of Payne and Schultz and how the two of them work together and we only saw hints of what that's going to be like. I think I'm fairly justified in wanting to see a more typical episode before telling people whether I think the show is worth watching. I mean sure, I'm not a professional critic (for one thing my audience is quite frankly tiny) but I'd like to get it right.

Pickin' Up Bones

Most of the other people blogging about television on Tuesday have been devoting their time to the new WB series Supernatural (which is waiting on my VCR for me to watch tomorrow - I may or may not write about it until I see a second episode though) - so I feel myself drawn to write about the new Fox series Bones. I'm not ashamed to say that I liked it, perhaps because it wasn't what I - or a lot of people sort of expected.

Emily Deschanel stars as Dr. Temperance Brennan, a Forensic Anthropologist working for the Jeffersonian institution in Washington. We first see her when she gets arrives from Guatemala and is accosted by a heavy set man who she puts flat on his back in a whimpering heap with about three moves, Immediately she's surrounded by guys with guns pointed at her not him. It turns out that the guy is from the Department of Homeland Security and she is carrying a "suspicious" package. It's a skull with lots of bits still attached. She picked it up in Guatemala during an excavation of graves from a mass execution site and is bringing it back for more analysis. Actually the bust by Homeland Security is a set up by FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) to get her attention and make her grateful to him. The two have had a prior working relationship and even though he hates "squints" (this series' FBI word for scientific types) he needs her to help investigate a decomposing corpse found in Arlington National Cemetery, and not in a grave. She refuses until told by her boss at the Institution that she will work with the FBI. He feels that having someone working with the FBI on cases as needed - or as Temperance puts it (to her African-American boss) being loaned out like property - helps the institution in terms of federal funding and is just playing the game. Temperance isn't happy with this but makes the best of a bad situation by demanding to be taken out in the field by Booth. All of this, I'm sure, will be an ongoing theme in the series, as will the reaction of Booth's boss (played by John M. Jackson, late of J.A.G, not, as the IMDB claims John Sterling Carter) who has the same institutional dislike of "squints" as Booth does.

It doesn't take them all that long to identify the remains despite the fact that what they recover is mostly bones and a few elements of trace material. They belong to a young congressional aide who has been missing for almost a year and a half. It's a case that Booth has been obsessed with since he was assigned it. There are three suspects - the Senator she worked for, his chief aide, and a stalker (Booth's favourite) - and the forensic evidence that comes in gradually doesn't real implicate anyone. In fact unlike a show like CSI it isn't "just" about the evidence. The forensics team discovers that the victim had been pregnant when she was murdered - what they initially thought were frog bones were in fact from a fetus - but there isn't enough DNA to compare to a sample Temperance collected (on a discarded piece of gum) from the Senator. It doesn't matter, his reaction told her and Booth that he was the father. The discover that the victim was actually stabbed with a military knife before her head was caved in with a sledge hammer actually added the victim's Army officer father to the list of suspects, even though no one actually believes it could be him. In the end, the forensic evidence leads them to the killer but it doesn't tell them why, but for the forensic team motive doesn't matter. That's left to the FBI agent to explain which he does as easily as Temperance is able to identify the victim as a woman of mixed race who played tennis.

That's the aspect of Bones that really works for me. For all of Temperance's abilities and the technical expertise of her team, she is - and they are - incomplete. Temperance and Booth compliment each other when working together, and not always in ways that you might expect. Temperance's isn't that great with human interaction. Her relationships outside of work have all tended to be brief and end badly. Her ex-boyfriend says its because she was orphaned young. In a scene with the victim's parents, she wants to tell them the truth about how their daughter died, but Booth cuts her off and tells them what they need to hear even though it isn't the truth. For his part, Booth doesn't have the scientific background but not only understands people but cares about them. This includes who he humanizes with the nickname "Bones" (which she hates of course).I enjoyed the acting fo the two principal characters. David Boreanaz puts aside the "tall dark and brooding" persona that he used for Angel, while Emily Deschanel is quite good as the butt kicking scientist. Revelations about the characters sometimes seems a bit abrupt. First we learn that Booth was in the Army and then that he was a military sniper and eventually that his goal is to solve as many cases as he took lives as a sniper, which was a lot. As for Temperance we go from learning that she was orphaned young to learning that her parents simply disappeared when she was 15. Still the writers have worked quite hard to develop a good relationship between the characters, one which may or may not have the potential to develop into the dreaded UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension). They've made a good start by allowing the character to indulge in the sort of banter which, although it never rises to the sort of witty repartee that we remember - wistfully - from the halcyon days of The West Wing is still a step above a lot of what passes for writing on TV these days.

The supporting cast on the other hand - at least at the lab - tends to be mostly made up of cliches. Temperance's best friend is lab tech Angela Montenegro (played by the vaguely exotic looking Michaela Conlin). She seems to be played at least partially as comic relief. In the first scene at the airport she is stymied in an attempt to get some help from an airport worker who is on the phone (and behaving her with the arrogance of someone with a little bit of authority) by flashing her boobs at him. The rest of the lab crew is standard, but with even less personality, at least at the moment. There's the brilliant student assistant who is halfway through two doctorates, which still doesn't allow him to talk to the boss (he only speaks to people with doctorates) and another forensic expert who is a massive conspiracy theorist. That may make it seem as though the cast is somehow bloated with unnecessary characters but it also helps to push to focus onto the two main characters. John M. Jackson is good, as always, as Booth's boss at the FBI and I only hope that he's a regular rather than just making a guest appearance.

If the only way to describe a series is with comparisons with other shows that viewers might know, then Bones would probably be described as being like Crossing Jordan with a bit of NCIS and perhaps, in the relationship between Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth, the slightest hint of Mulder and Scully from The X-Files (although it wouldn't be advisable to press that analogy too far). Certainly the show isn't as heavy and serious about itself as the CSI franchise or any of the other Jerry Bruckheimer produced procedural series, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The bottom line is that Bones is a far better lead in House than last year's Rebel Billionaire, and if enough people are mad about the coming changes in NCIS and the way last season ended, it might be able to build an audience. I'll probably work my schedule to see it, at least for a while longer to see if they can keep it up.

TV on DVD - September 13, 2005

Last night was my first night of bowling which also meant it was the first time in a while that I've been able to fuel this blog with a Double Gulp of Dr. Pepper from 7-11 (the store that used to be five blocks from me was bulldozed about three months ago). Even then I couldn't stay up long enough to finish writing this last night. Better late than never though. There are a couple of really interesting releases this week, notably the Dick Cavett set featuring appearances by Ray Charles.

Da Ali G Show: The Complete Second Season
- This is the second (and apparently last) season of the wickedly satirical and often controversial HBO series featuring Sacha Baron Cohen and his alter-egos Borat the anti-semitic Khazak journalist, Bruno, the homosexual Austrian "voice of youth television", and of course black hip-hop talk show host Ali G ("real" name Alistair Leslie Graham). I've never seen the show myself, but reading descriptions indicates that it find humour by exposing the foibles and hypocrisy of people who are either in on the joke or, more likely, really are that way. I can see where it has a great deal of potential to be funny even if it probably doesn't represent my personal taste.

The Brady Bunch: The Complete Third Season
- Seasons of The Brady Bunch tend to blur together except for special episodes. The third season had the Brady family visiting the Grand Canyon, encountering a looney old prospector en route - played by Sherwood Schwartz favourite Jim Backus. If I'm not mistaken this is also the season in which Jan utters the immortal words "Marcia Marcia Marcia!" It's not a particularly deep series, but I can remember lusting in my heart for Maureen McCormick and increasingly (by this season) Eve Plumb.

Cheers: The Complete Sixth Season
- I was never a huge fan of Shelley Long. Correction, I was never a fan of Shelley Long at all. This may explain why I tended to watch Cheers more when Kirstie Alley as Rebecca Howe replaced Alley. Gone was the whole focus on Sam and Dianne's relationship. There was sexual tension between Sam and Rebecca but it mostly consisted of Sam wanting to get into Rebecca's pants and Rebecca categorically rejecting the notion while she pursued her corporate career - a career which anyone with half a brain could see had been run into a siding and the fast track pulled up behind it. This actually allowed a bit more focus on the regular barflies that went a bit beyond just Cliff and Norm. All in all I think the change might even have made the show better than it had been with Shelley Long.

Dick Cavett Show: Ray Charles Collection
- Dick Cavett was the intellectual talk show host following in the wake of Jack Parr. Nothing proves this more than the other guests who were on his show with the legendary Ray Charles. According to the notes for the DVD on the Amazon.ca page for it the guests included anthropologist Margaret Mead, New York Mayor John Lindsay (he may have been the former mayor by that point), and noted surgeon Dr. Samuel Rosen (I know, you'll have to look it up). The point is of course that I doubt that any of these people (well okay, maybe Lindsay) would have been on with Carson or any of the other talk show hosts of this period. Even more surprising is that there's one of the three shows in this set is devoted entirely to Ray Charles. Can you think of anyone else who would do that.

Empire Falls
- The multiple Emmy award nominated miniseries has finally been released on DVD so that those of us who either don't have or don't want HBO or its Canadian equivalents can actually see why it was so highly regarded by the Television Academy. One thing that is absolutely clear is that it has attracted a cast that is the very definition of the words "star studded", including four Oscar winners and at least one actor who should have won an Oscar by now.

Everybody Loves Raymond: The Complete Fourth Season
- I didn't. I tried to like the show, and there's no denying that it has a truly amazing cast, but I never found it enjoyable. I think a lot of it has to do with Ray Romano but it spread out across the rest of the cast - I 've always enjoyed Doris Roberts's work, except in this. About the only bright spot for me was Brad Garrett as Ray's brother Robert. Him I found funny.

Frasier: The Complete Sixth Season
- I always liked Frasier even though I rarely watched it, particularly in later season. I had a tendency to catch the shows in reruns and seeing them both out of order and in a fragmentary way. Kelsey Grammer's Dr. Frasier Crane is one of the great comedic creations - proven by the character's longevity. The series is, of course, all about the interaction between Frasier - and his equally pompous brother Niles - and the "normal" people, and the relationship between Frasier and his father Martin and his aggressively sexual producer Roz are the high points of the show. Still I have to confess that my favourite character was Frasier's brother Niles, played by David Hyde Pierce. There's something about the character which, despite all his pomposity, is a rather sweet individual in his (at this point) unrequited love for Daphne.

Kids Say the Darndest Things
- Art Linkletter was born in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan in 1912, and although he didn't spend much time here (he was an abandoned baby and was adopted by the Linkletter family of California) Saskatchewan will continue to claim him. Kids Say The Darndest Things was a segment within his popular morning variety show Art Linkletter's House Party which ran for almost 20 years on CBS. While House Party is virtually forgotten, the little segments at the end of the show where Art interviewed kids and got all sorts of funny cute answers took on a life of its own. Those segments were sold to stations apart from the regular show and long after House Party was cancelled Bill Cosby would revive the concept of Kids Say The Darndest Things as half hour show in 1998, with the then 86 year-old Linkletter as co-host introducing some of the original segments. A true TV legend, both the man and the idea.

Las Vegas: Season Two
- This set and a couple of others on this week's list indicates the growing importance of DVD sales to TV producers. It's no surprise that this set is being released a day after the repeat of the season finale of Las Vegas. It is in fact a trend that has been common in Britain for many years with both VHS and DVD releases of current shows coming very soon after the shows end their run for the season. I enjoy Las Vegas as harmless fluff... and as a chance to see several lovely women - including on occasion Cheryl Ladd - in various stages of undress. The second season of the series included guest appearances by Alec Baldwin, Sylvester Stallone and Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman as well as a host of musical guests ranging from Tony Orlando to Black Eyed Peas to Clint Black (and a guitar player who I swear looked like Paul McCartney). However, since I haven't actually seen the first season DVDs of this, could someone please tell me whatexactly is "uncut and uncensored" about it?

Midsomer Murders: Set 6
- I've never actually seen this series, although it was on A&E for a while (before they apparently decided that reality shows like Dog The Bounty Hunter were more their style - but I'm not bitter, I'm not bitter,... the hell I ain't). Anyway the show is a standard from the BBC which is still in production. It's based loosely on a series of novels by Caroline Graham and set in the fictional English county of Midsomer, which is both rurally idyllic and full of killers, not unlike a British Cabot's Cove. By all accounts quite addictive.

One Tree Hill: The Complete Second Season
- Typical WB series full of teen angst and relationships, this time involving teenaged boys who share the same father and just about nothing else. I've never seen it so for once I won't comment further.

Peep Show: The Original UK Series
- Never heard of this show. From a look at just about anything I can find about it it has a vague resemblance to Men Behaving Badly except that there are too many differences for that to be a correct comparison. Two old college chums share a flat and become involved in various romantic entanglements. When one guys star is ascendant his friend's is in decline. It sounds like it could be interesting but I just don't know.

Rambo, Vol. 3: S.A.V.A.G.E. Island
Rambo, Vol. 4: Up in Arms
- More episodes of the Rambo cartoon series. Why? In the name of all that is holy WHY???

SCTV: Volume 4
- Even though SCTV was one of the most talked about Canadian series ever, and one of the few ever to be sold to an American network even for a brief run, I didn't actually see it until it went into reruns many years later and when I did see it I didn't actually care for it. The series had a rather convoluted production history being made in Toronto for a producer in Alberta but broadcast over the Global network which at the time consisted of one bankrupt station in Toronto and a bunch of repeaters around Ontario. The series eventually moved to the CBC but for the life of me I can't recall seeing it there. This DVD is of the last season, and is missing Catherine O'Hara, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas (no Bob and Doug! Outrageous!), although it does have Martin Short including his Ed Grimley character. As I say, I was never a fan but there are a lot of fans out there.

Smallville: The Complete Fourth Season
- The funny thing about Smallville fans is that they are inevitably filled with gloom, doom and despair about the show. Every episode seems to be regarded as the worst episode ever and each season is reported to be going downhill fast. Moving the series to Thursday night for the fifth season is clear proof that those bastards at The WB are attempting to kill it, which if it were really as bad as they claimed wouldn't bother them a bit. The fourth season did have some messy moments with the whole "Lana the Teenaged Witch" storyline and the additions of Jason Ackles and Erica Durance (as Lois Lane) to the cast, but in my view there were some enjoyable episodes including a bit of a parody of Charmed with Lana, Lois and Chloe as three very wicked witches. The season finale is, as usual, a major event.

Taxi: The Complete Third Season
- By the third season of Taxi I had ceased to be a regular viewer. I can't remember why it happened although a big reason was Christopher Lloyd's drug addled Reverend Jim. I couldn't stand the character and so I sort of drifted away and never came back (just to be fair I also wasn't particularly a fan of Jeff Conaway either). I suspect I just found something that, at the time, I liked better but heaven knows what it was.

Tony Orlando and Dawn Ultimate Collection
- So what I'm wondering is why, if they can release a DVD featuring episodes from the Tony Orlando And Dawn Rainbow Hour they can't - or won't - release episodes of the Johnny Cash Show on DVD. Don't get me wrong, the Tony Orlando And Dawn series was fun in a kitschy sort of way and attracted a lot of guest stars - in fact George Carlin was even listed as a regular in 1976 - but for me the Johnny Cash material is far more important, perhaps because the Johnny Cash Show focused on the music, and it was better music.

War (At Home) Is Hell

I don't watch many sitcoms. It isn't that I don't like sitcoms - well at least not entirely - it's just that they don't interest me. If the new Fox series The War At Home is an indicator of the quality of the new crop of situation comedies, then I'm not missing much. I didn't just find it bad, I found it difficult to watch.

Dave and Vicki (Michael Rappaport and Anita Barone) have three kids that they apparently don't like very well. They can't wait for them to go off to college - in fact Dave knows down to the day when each of his kids will be leaving the nest complete with a mental countdown clock. As long as the kids don't have a drug problem or kids of their own when they leave Dave and Vicki figure they've done a good job. Of course that leaves a lot of space in between for a lot of stuff to go on - the sort of stuff that Dave and Vicki did when they were teens.

As for the kids, well they're each a piece of work. The most normal is the youngest Mike (Dean Collins). All he wants is a Playstation 2 with all that "extra" money his parents bring in. He's easy to deal with - just keep telling him no. This sends him over to his friend's house - he's dull but he has a PS2 and a mom who just got breast implants. The middle child is Larry (Kyle Sullivan). Dave is convinced that Larry is gay because he doesn't seem particularly masculine. Larry isn't gay, he's desperate. In fact he's so desperate to get laid that he dresses up as his mother so he can drive her car over to some girl's house with the expectation that he and his friend Kenny will become "well oiled sex machines". Might have worked too if he hadn't forgotten to take his mother's blouse off after they got there. However thanks to Mike, Dave and Vicki find out about the cross-dressing. Caught between the prospect of being grounded for a year and never being able to get his licence and his parents thinking he's a transvestite he goes with transvestite. Actually, from what we've seen of his parents his father would probably offer him checklist of things to do before getting out of the car. Finally there's daughter Hillary (Kaylee DeFer) who describes herself as a "technical virgin" (as she puts it you could throw her into a volcano, but she wouldn't be your first choice). Mike, who besides everything else is a bit of a snitch, reveals that Hillary wants to go on a date with a senior who drives. Hillary says that it's not true, he's a freshman - in college. Dave and Vicki forbid it which leads Hillary to remind her mother that she went out on dates in cars when she was Hillary's age (flashback to a car with two legs sticking out of the sun roof, bouncing rapidly on its springs). In retaliation she introduces her family to her "new" boyfriend Tay - short for Bootay - who is black. Dad doesn't approve but Vicki sees it for what it is, a bait and switch move (and besides she had a few black boyfriends which starts a whole new area of interest/concern for Dave). Actually Vicki is doing Tay's homework which angers his dad because he went from being an "A" student to a "B-".

I thought that this show was horrible. The characters are thoroughly unlikable and while the situations may be familiar to most parents the responses come across as being entirely for comic effect. Although Barone has a couple of moments, Rappaport should stick to drama which he does relatively well. Of the kids Kyle Sullivan, who was a recurring character on Malcolm in the Middle, has the most television experience and it shows. He's the only one who doesn't come across as a sitcom brat. Still if you want to know the truth it isn't the acting that makes this show a dog or even the writing. There are some funny lines, notably Hillary's statement about her "technical virginity" which would presumably result in Dave acting on his "one simple rule for dating my teenaged daughter - she sees your dick and I'll slice it off." The problem comes in production and in the whole concept of the characters. There are a couple of interesting ideas including characters breaking the fourth wall to talk to the audience in the style of a reality show "confessional" but it's the sort of stuff that's been done before and better. An annoying problem which resurfaces repeatedly is the overly clumsy use of canned laughter. It's loud and it doesn't seem to vary much in intensity not to mention the fact that it frequently appears at points where the dialog doesn't warrant it.

The problem is that the actors don't create the character and the writers shape the characters in a way that the producers want them to be. Dave in particular comes across as intolerant. He doesn't like the idea that his son might be gay or that his daughter is dating a black kid even as a subterfuge. We've seen other families on TV who have been detached from their kids - the parents in Malcolm In The Middle come to mind - but they've always seemed to have had some redeeming quality that so far I don't find in Dave and Vicki or their brood. The Bundys from Married With Children were probably worse but it was absolutely clear that they were a burlesque of a family. This sense of burlesque doesn't come across in The War At Home. The worst thing may well be that the producers and the executives at Fox who okayed this thought the show was funny and that there'd be an audience for it. There may indeed be an audience for this show but I don't know who it might be.

Shows Debuting This Week

The following series will be debuting this week. (New shows in italics).

Sunday
The Simpsons (Fox)
The War At Home (Fox)
Family Guy (Fox)
American Dad (Fox)

Monday
Wife Swap (ABC)

Tuesday
Bones (Fox)
Biggest Loser (NBC)
Gilmore Girls (The WB)
House (Fox)
Supernatural (The WB)

Wednesday
Head Cases (Fox)

Thursday
Survivor: Guatemala

Friday
What I Like About You (The WB)
Twins (The WB)
Reba (The WB)
Life With Fran (The WB)
Threshold (CBS)

So What Do They Do For An Encore?

In a reversal of their strategy from previous years, which saw most of the Fox Network's new Fall schedule start after the extended Baseball playoffs - usually towards the end of October - this season Fox has been the first to have new shows debuting. While CBS is still recovering from The Cut (which one might say was the unkindest Cut of all considering the ratings), NBC is still labouring under the misapprehension that anyone at all wanted to see Meet Mr. Mom, and ABC has a couple more episodes of My Kind Of Town that haven't escaped yet, Fox has had the premieres of two new series. In fact Prison Break has actually been on for two weeks. This past Thursday night Fox debuted their second new series for the Fall with the one hour premiere of Reunion as well as the season premiere of The O.C.

The first thing that's obvious, just from reading the initial description of the show is that we're looking at the antithesis of 24. While 24 takes the events of a single day and spins them through a twenty four episode season, Reunion takes the events of twenty years and compacts that into around 20 one hour episodes. More accurately of course it takes what appear to be the key events of the period between the high school graduation of a group of six friends in 1986 and the murder in 2006 of one of them, a crime that one of the five remaining friends is accused.

First episodes are most often not indicative of the direction that series that rely heavily on continuity will take. That is probably the case here. The episode opens inside a church in the present day. It's a funeral and the speaker is eulogizing someone (although carefully avoiding revealing the name or even the gender of the deceased) as being a member of a very special group of high school friends. This leads to the first of the flashbacks to 1985 when Jenna (Amanda Righetti), Carla (Chyler Young), Will (Will Estes), Aaron (David Annable), Samantha (Alexa Davalos) and Craig (Sean Faris) graduate from high school. Each of them - except Carla - has plans which will take them away from their hometown but not out of each other's lives. Samantha and Craig - the perfect couple - are going to Brown University even though Samantha has received a scholarship to study in London; she wants to stay with her man. Will, Craig's best friend since childhood even though Craig is rich and Will's father does landscaping work, is going of to study at "Hopkins" (presumably Johns Hopkins). Jenna is going to be a star on Broadway while class nerd Will (who thinks Wham is going to be bigger than The Beatles - proof of nerddom) is going to MIT. As for Carla, she's been taking care of her father since her mother died - and swiping stuff from his pharmacy - and is either unwilling or unable to break away.

Of course this is only the surface: there are secrets and and events will conspire to keep teenaged plans from being fulfilled. Among the things that have gone missing from Carla's father's pharmacy are early pregnancy tests. Several have gone to Samantha who is pregnant... but not with Craig's baby. During a period when Craig and Samantha had broken up she had sex with Will, who also loves her. Meanwhile Aaron has an incredibly obvious crush on Jenna (at least obvious to everyone but Jenna) while Carla has a much more carefully concealed crush on him. What sets events in motion, and what we learn in the present is a major turning point in all their lives, is a car accident. Craig and Will go on a beer run in Craig's Porsche. Craig is driving and his significantly more drunk than Will. Naturally the car crashes into a truck. Will is persuaded to say that he was driving because he wasn't as drunk as Craig. The thing spirals out of control of course. The truck driver dies and even though Will's lawyer (paid for by Craig's father who refuses to let his son take the blame) arranges a very good plea bargain with the local District Attorney, Will is sentenced to a year in the county correctional facility by a judge who is obviously running for reelection on a platform of being tough of teen drinking (even though Will's blood alcohol is .02 - well under the legal limit - it's more than she had to drink that night, and he is a minor). In the end Samantha, who is conflicted in her relationship with Craig and Will, decides to take up the scholarship in London and Carla finally decides to find herself by going with her best friend.

The first episode of the series shows copious amounts of teen angst in the 1986 sequences which make up most of the show. The writing is reasonably strong. The mystery is constantly in the our minds as we watch the stories of the six friends; what parts of the stories are important to the solution of the mystery and which are extraneous will inevitably be in viewer minds as the show progresses. At least so far - and it's probably too early to tell - most of the acting is adequate with only Chyler Young as Claire really seems to stand out at the moment. She is the only person seen in the "present" sequences and for a 23 year old actress she's doing relatively well at playing a 38 year old smoker (although as a 38 year old she is definitely a MILF - Mother I'd Like to... Fornicate with). The other character in the "present" sequences is Matthew St. Patrick (from Six Feet Under), but so far he doesn't have much to do. However his presence points out one of the problems that seems like to crop up as the show progresses. He looks like someone in his late 30s or early 40s. As the series progresses the actors - who range in age between 23 and 27 - are going to have to change in appearance and attitude. In the end they'll all have to play people up to fifteen years older than they are. And I don't know about you, but when I went to my class reunion (25 years) there weren't a lot of people who looked remotely like what they did when I knew them (oddly enough there were a lot of comments on how much I hadn't changed - of course I haven't gained a lot of obvious weight and I still have my hair). They need to be able to carry this off for the series to be successful.

Thursday night promises to be one of this year's most contentious nights of programming. Every network - including UPN - is making an effort in the first two hours to come in second. CBS is probably untouchable in that time period, but NBC's lineup has been seen as weak and metaphorically at least the vultures are gathering to take over some of their audience. In the 8-9 p.m. (CST) slot Reunion will be up against ABC's remake of Night Stalker, NBC's The Apprentice (which has been losing viewers after the first series), UPN's Cuts and Love Inc. and The WB's Everwood in the race to come second to CSI. The early start may give Reunion something of a head start in the race, but it remains to be seen if the show can hold its debut audience particularly once the competition starts showing new episodes. The first episode of Reunion seemed very familiar, with only the hook of unravelling of the ongoing mystery and the notion that since one episode equals one year we'll see these characters grow and develop setting it apart from a series such as its lead-in The O.C. I'm afraid I'm a bit lukewarm warm on this show. I can't really give it an unconditional recommendation based on the first episode alone. It does well enough but it isn't the ground breaking series we were promised, at least not yet. If the show doesn't manage to find and hold an audience relatively quickly, the question of what they could possibly do for an encore - a second season - will probably be the least of their worries.

Poll - Outstanding Drama Series

This is our final Emmy Poll. Please vote for the series that you think should win as Outstand Drama Series. Feel free to comment.

Poll Results - Outstanding Comedy Series

I hope to have a review of Reunion sometime Friday. I had a bad headache on Thursday and took a nap (which usually helps get rid of them).

As for the results of the poll, there were a record 18 voters and the results were very close. In fifth place was Everybody Loves Raymond with no votes. In fourth place with two votes was Will And Grace. In a tie for second place with five votes each are Desperate Housewives and Scrubs, but the winner with six votes is Arrested Development.

I would suggest that this is an interesting result. The lack of support for Everybody Loves Raymond probably shouldn't surprise anyone. Even though the series ended on a relatively successful season the fact is that it may not have been as sharp as it was in previous seasons. I do find the two votes for Will And Grace more surprising. The show has been on a downward spiral in terms of quality, although granted even at that it's still better than something like According To Jim or even its Thursday night running mate Joey.

It's in the top there that the real surprises are found. Both Scrubs and Arrested Development were in danger of being cancelled at the end of this past season and in the case of Scrubs, NBC has only okayed it for a half season next year which is scarcely a vote of confidence even from NBC (where the lineup is such that you can probably expect Scrubs to be back sooner than the network hopes). On the other hand Desperate Housewives is one of the most poplar new shows of the past year. I'm not sure I'm suitable as a person to read poll respondents minds but there have been some resistance to voting for it if they feel it doesn't actually belong in the category. It's worth noting that the upsurge in support for Desperate Housewives came in the last couple of days. Before that it lagged behind Scrubs and Arrested Development.

As for the actual Emmy voters, I have a feeling that there might also be that sort of ambivalence towards Desperate Housewives which, when combined with the general acclaim that Arrested Development has had, should see that show win. The only hope for Everybody Loves Raymond is that voters might feel a bit of nostalgia for the series, but I honestly don't expect that to happen. This is a two horse race and Arrested Development is probably the odds on favourite.

The last of the Emmy Polls - Outstanding Drama Series - will be posted in the morning.

Katrina Blog

My old Diplomacy buddy and mentor Cal White (who now has his dream job running a radio station at the Wahta Mohawk Territory up near Bala Ontario) sent me a link to a weblog being published by a guy in New Orleans who works for DirectNIC. Apparently he and a small crew have been holding down the fort (almost literally) and reporting information since the hurricane began. Pretty interesting stuff, particularly if you read fromt he beginning. The Blog is at http://mgno.com/ so check it out.

Edit: Sam pointed out that there was no link there. That's what I get for trusting w.bloggar and not checking the actual post.

Bob Denver - 1935-2005

Bob Denver may have been one of the best known actors for someone whose career stalled. Certainly every true Child of Television knew and loved him. He died September 2 of complications from cancer treatment.

Born in New Rochelle New York, it was while he was attending Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles, were he was in pre-Law, that he first began acting. Although he initially resisted it he eventually decided to make it his career. Before winning the role of Maynnard G. Krebs in The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis he worked as a mailman and a teacher. Krebs was an iconic role, and gave him a chance not only to work with his Loyola-Marymount classmate Dwayne Hickman, but also with Tuesday Weld, Michael J. Pollard and Warren Beatty.

Still it is as Gilligan, the lead character in Gilligan's Island that he's best known today. While the show ran only three years it managed to typecast Bob Denver so strongly that in later years he usually found acting roles on TV either reprising the Gilligan role - as in an episode of Baywatch - or playing himself as he did in an episode of Evening Shade. Following Gilligan's Island there were a couple of series that didn't take off. One was The Good Guys in which he costarred with Herb Edelman and which was, on the whole a pretty good show that never really clicked with the audience. Another was Dusty's Trails, which was nowhere near a pretty good show. It was a "revision" of Gilligan's Island that had everything but the island - a one wagon wagon train with five travelers a wagon master (played by Forrest Tucker) and a scout (Bob Denver) who gets them hopelessly lost. Does this sound at all familiar? Mark Evanier has a couple of stories about encounters with Bob Denver when they were both working on an attempt to revive The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis under the misdirection of James Komack (the less said about Komack the better except to remind you that he was the one who caused the on set feud between Gabe Kaplan and Marcia Strassman on the set of Welcome Back Kotter - there are a lot of people who didn't like Komack). Apparently it was at about this time that he'd abandoned Hollywood and moved to West Virginia, returning occasionally for guest roles and of course fan appearances. He worked extensively with the handicapped in West Virginia. He also hosted a radio show in West Virginia. In recent years his name came up when he was arrested after a parcel of marijuana was delivered to his home. He received six months probation. In May of this year he underwent quadruple bypass surgery and it was at around this time that his cancer was diagnosed.

Gilligan's Island was a blessing and a curse for Bob Denver. It made him a household name in a way that not even The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis didn't but he tended to get typecast as the enthusiastic but bumbling and rather dumb guy who sometimes triumphs in the end. In real life he was well read and extremely helpful to his cast mates. His philosophy was that "when you work to make the other person look good, you end up looking good yourself,". It was Denver who was responsible for the second season addition of "The Professor and Mary-Ann" to the the show's theme song, and for helping to increase Dawn Wells' salary. Unfortunately for the cast members, most of whom were also typecast, although not nearly as much as Denver, TV show contracts at the time only gave actors residuals for five repeats of any given episode. The cast of Gilligan's Island received their last residual checks in 1968.

TV On DVD - September 6, 2005 - Part 2

Here's the second half of the DVD listing. I'm slightly ticked at a couple of things, one to do with the list and one because of the list. As sometimes happens Amazon.ca has different release dates for some of the DVDs on the list and in a couple of cases they don't even have them listed. You'll know those when you see them, but it's a bit of a pain.

As for what has me ticked off because of the list, I usually play an online poker tournament at the Full Tilt Poker site (I have delusions of adequacy as a poker player). Sign ups for the tournaments I play in are filled fast - within a minute fast - and because I was working on the first half of the list I missed signing up by 30 seconds. Naturally it was the one night in almost a year when a big name pro - Chris "Jesus" Ferguson - decided to play in a freeroll.

Goosebumps: Chillogy
Goosebumps: Scary House
Goosebumps: The Ghost Next Door
- The Goosebumps series of scary stories for teens, written by R.L. Stine was produced in Canada and aired on Fox for three years. There doesn't appear to be very much on any of these DVD's - the Amazon.ca website doesn't even indicate if there's more than one episode per disk. Be warned.

Stephen King Presents Kingdom Hospital: The Beginning
- It must have seemed like a good idea at the time; get Stephen King, one of the best selling authors ever, to create a horror TV series for network TV. The only problem was that it didn't attract many viewers - certainly not the legions of fans who make even his bad books best sellers. There's already a box set which collects the entire series, but this is one of those cases where I recommend that people buy these individual sets even though the cost will be higher. The reason is that there seem to be more extras in these sets - starting with The Beginning and going through Making The Rounds and Post Mortem - since the finished product will consist of six DVDs as opposed to four in the original set.

Last Chapter: The Complete Series
- Produced by CBC and Radio-Canada, The Last Chapter is a fascinating study of a motorcycle gang's effort to expand out of into Ontario, the last area where they have yet to gain a foothold. The series was simultaneously shot in English and in French (except for Michael Ironside who felt his French wasn't up to the task). There are other sets available but this is labelled as "The Complete Series". It isn't clear to me if this means that it is the complete first mini-series or includes both mini-series.

Lost: The Complete First Season
- Lost was one of the series that made the 2004-05 TV season so interesting. While the concept might sound like a combination of Gilligan's Island and Survivor the series quickly went well beyond that. (People who write stuff like that probably forget a show that Lost resembles at least a little more than either of the other two, The New People). Despite a large cast of 14 major recurring characters the producers have managed to assemble not just a coherent storyline full of twists and turns and unanswered questions, but have also managed to give each of the characters a personality and a background. Best of all is that the mysteries of the island and the people on it hold your interest. If anything the DVD might make some of the stories clearer by allowing viewers to follow individual stories throughout the series without extraneous material. Probably worth buying for that alone.

MacGyver: The Complete Third Season
- The Man, The Myth, The Verb is back. By Season 3, Mac was fully ensconced in working for the Phoenix Foundation. It's not easy to differentiate between seasons of this series, although Season 3 was the last that they'd shoot in Los Angeles. It was also the year in which The Phoenix Foundation added a second - female - agent named Nikki Carpenter, played by Elyssa Davalos

Millennium: Season 3
- I loved this series. My only regret (well one of them) is that they were forced to end it on a single episode of The X-Files. Lance Henriksen is letter perfect as Frank Black, the profiler who finds himself involved in the Millennium Group. The question is, are they a force for good or ill. By the third season it seems clear that The Group is evil, but with them you can never tell. Sadly, Millennium's third season wasn't able to hold my interest at the time; it was a major change from the second season which was mostly in the hands of Glen Morgan and James Wong which I thought - rightly or wrongly - was something of a high point for the show.

Power Rangers: S.P.D.: Vol. 2 Stakeout
Power Rangers: S.P.D.: Vol. 3 Wired
- My mother always said that if you can't say something nice you should say nothing at all. With regards to yet another release of a Power Rangers related DVD - nothing at all.

SaddleClub, The Vol 3: The Mane Event
- I've never heard of the Saddle Club series. From the looks of things it is yet another series for pre-teen girls.

Saturday Night Live: Live From New York - The First Five Years
Saturday Night Live: The Best of John Belushi
Saturday Night Live: The Best of Gilda Radner
Saturday Night Live: The Best of Dan Aykroyd
- Have you ever noticed how some performers on Saturday Night Live just sort of standout. I mean I doubt that you'll ever see a "Best of Garret Morris" or a "Best of Laraine Newman" disc, and as for Jane Curtin, well she's better known for sitcom like Kate And Allie or Third Rock From The Sun. The first five years of the show were probably high points of the series' history in large part because of Belushi, Radner, and Aykroyd, but still they didn't do it alone. The individual DVDs feature some of their most famous sketches. The First Five Years disk on the other hand is not a set but rather excerpts from the show's first five seasons.

So Little Time Gift Set
- Five words sum this DVD up: Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. Unless you are a tween girl or are buying for one, avoid this like the bubonic plague.

Ponce De Leon - Tall Tales and Legends
Annie Oakley - Tall Tales and Legends
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Tall Tales and Legends: The Complete Series
- This was Shelley Duvall's follow-up to her well received Faerie Tale Theatre series. These shows weren't quite as well regarded as the earlier work, and only nine episodes were produced. All nine are now available on individual DVDs but as usual you're probably better off to buy the complete set...if you can get it (Amazon.ca doesn't list it).

TV on DVD - September 6, 2005 - Part 1

It's a long list this week, although it's primarily DVDs for the kids or the pre-teen set. There are a couple of quite interesting items hidden in there and it would be a shame to make a post so huge people wouldn't read it, so I'm splitting it in two.

21 Jump Street: Season 3
- I don't know that I ever saw this series, which was the first time most people ever saw Johnny Depp. He was clearly the standout actor in this series, although there were a number of other important young actors in the series including Richard Greico (who appeared in an episode of this season that Depp refused to do), Peter DeLuise and Holly Robinson (before she married Rodney Peete).

Adventures of the Little Prince: The Complete Series
- This was a Frano-German-Japanese production seen in the United States on the Nickelodeon Network back in 1982 which took the principal character from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novel as it's basis. The Prince of the title often travels to Earth to have adventures, as opposed to what happens in the novel. Apparently the animation is fairly basic since this was a low budget effort.

Buffalo Bill: The Complete First and Second Seasons
- Buffalo Bill was an early effort to put Dabney Coleman in a comedy series. Despite an excellent cast which included Joanna Cassidy and Geena Davis, many viewers found Coleman's Bill Bittinger too mean-spirited and nasty for 1983, although the show might possibly work today. It ran 26 episodes and this set could easily be renamed Buffalo Bill: The Complete Series.

Rocky and Bullwinkle: The Complete Season 3
Best of Fractured Fairy Tales, Vol. 1
- Do I really need to say that they don't make them like this anymore? Well they don't. Those of us who saw the series as kids in the early 1960s loved it just as a funny cartoon adventure, but with the passage of the years the aspects of the show that appealed to adults come out. Some of us actually remember Durwood Kirby, the inspiration for the Kerwood Derby but while kids today might not get references like that they'll still enjoy it as a funny cartoon adventure. As for Fractured Fairy Tales, they're fun too although not in the same topical manner. To top it all off there is some truly great voice acting on display thanks to Edward Everett Horton, June Foray, Hans Conreid, Paul Frees, Daws Butler, Walter Tetley and of course William Conrad.

Charmed: The Complete Second Season
- I've never been an active viewer of Charmed, although I will confess to having tried to make an effort when it was on daily on Canada's Showcase: Diva channel. It didn't take, possibly because I've never really liked Shannon Doherty or Alyssa Milano (I will confess to a fondness for Holly Marie Combs dating back to Picket Fences). I found it not particularly objectionable, but not something I'd build my night around. Take that for what it's worth, which isn't much.

Degrassi Junior High: Season 3
- The final season of DeGrassi Junior High before the series morphed into DeGrassi High School. I didn't watch any of the four DeGrassi series, so again this is something that I can't really comment on except to say that unlike a lot of programming for this age group it isn't all happy times mixed with condescension.

Doctor Who: The Mind Robber
Doctor Who: Horror of Fang Rock
- The Mind Robber is one of my favourite Doctor Who in part because it's from one of the best periods in the history of the series, Patrick Troughton's last season. This one subtly batters the fourth wall by attempting to make the Doctor into a fictional creation. A brilliant piece of work. Horror of Fang Rock isn't as strong - I'm less of a fan of Tom Bakers than of Troughton's - but it's an excellent mystery of the "locked room" or "deserted island" variety and does give us a glimpse of the Rutan's, the ancient enemies of the Sontarans.

Doogie Howser, M.D.: Season Two
- As a concept Doogie Howser M.D. was always a natural target for satire. He was a teenager who couldn't drive but could prescribe narcotics. Still for four years, powered by the writing of David E. Kelly and with Steven Bochco as producer, the show worked. It didn't hurt that Neil Patrick Harris was - and still is - a talented actor, or that the show had a strong supporting cast, particularly James B. Sikking as Doogie's father and Belinda J. Montgomery as his mother. The premise, though based on a real person, was always suspect and began to lose interest as Doogie grew towards adulthood, with the milestones aging presented including losing his virginity. Still an excellent show which may be inspirational for younger viewers but isn't a "kids" show.

Fat Albert's Halloween Special
- Hey, hey, hey! There's not much here except for the Halloween Special and a game, and for the price they're charging, even if it's only $14.99 Canadian before the Amazon.ca discount, I think you have a right to expect more.

Fraggle Rock: Doin' Things That Doozers Do
- For those of you who remember Fraggle Rock, the Doozers were the omnipresent little guys who were always building these marvelous constructions which the Fraggles end up eating. They were in fact part of the cave's delicate eco-system: Doozers build constructions using radishes so that Fraggles wil eat them. If the Fraggles don't eat them eventually the Doozers stop building and move away. The Doozers were in fact the smallest character Muppets ever created by Jim Henson Productions. This DVD has three episodes of the series, but amazingly not the episode where we learn all of this, "The Preachification of Convincing John". There are a number of extras on the DVD but on the whole it comes across as a very child oriented product. If you really want to get the Fraggle Rock series, you're better off buying the season 1 set for the price of about three of the individual DVDs.