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TV is the New Reading

POSTED:Sun, October 25, 2009 @ 0:13AM

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Shoveling out the DVR

I was on a much-needed vacation this week.

Following a month or so of fall premieres watching shows I never otherwise watch so as to comment on them honestly, and more and more intensive rehearsal sessions for my turn on stage as the lawyer guy from the Minot Area Theatrical Society’s production of “Deathtrap” last weekend, I kicked back this week and watched a quite startling amount of television -- a backlog of programming, plenty enough to choke a horse and then some -- simply for the sheer joy of it.

It’s true. I watch entirely too much television. Right now, the shows I’m paying attention to, from memory, include "The Simpsons," "Desperate Housewives," "Brothers & Sisters," "Mad Men," "Accidentally on Purpose," "The Big Bang Theory," "Heroes," "Castle," "Sons of Anarchy," "The Universe," this "V" thing that’s coming up next month on ABC, "Criminal Minds," for now (I’ll explain in a moment) "Glee," "Nip/Tuck," "Mercy," "Top Chef," "FlashForward," "Grey’s Anatomy," "Bones" and "Fringe," and now while FOX is airing baseball I’m watching "Community," "Parks and Recreation" and "The Office" on NBC along with "Project Runway" and "South Park," "Ugly Betty," "Dollhouse," maybe "Medium" while FOX is airing baseball and maybe not -- again, I’ll explain in a moment -- classic episodes of "The Prisoner" on IFC, not "Sanctuary," more on that in a moment, the final season of "Monk" and now that "Psych" is on hiatus until January, "White Collar" on USA, more on that little gem down the road. Oh, and "Top Gear" and "Robin Hood" on BBC America, "The Soup" with Joel McHale, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."

That’s more than one full day of television each week. It takes skill and determination to pay attention to that much storytelling and it certainly refines one’s palate.

CBS dramas

For instance, from having watched "NCIS" and "NCIS Los Angeles," "The Mentalist," "NUMB3RS," the revamped production of "Medium" and even my longtime love of "Criminal Minds," I broke down a CBS crime drama this week. Start with a spooky, freaky home-invading criminal committing bizarre crimes, mostly in some nice family’s home. Bring in the brave and true investigators, most of them gorgeous or at least quirky, make some offhand dig at youth culture and/or anything outside a socio-economic norm established in, say, Pennsylvania circa 1953, close with some dark, strummy music to make the viewer feel somehow more connected with their black-eye-makeup-wearing grandchildren, throw in a little tension, a little thrill, commercials for Cialis, Activia and Boniva and then WE CAUGHT 'IM! Your world's all safe again, 42 minutes, there ya go TA DAH!

I’d throw "CSI" in there but to be perfectly honest I’ve never watched an entire episode of any of the "CSIs" all the way through so it wouldn’t be fair. Other people can tell me how close to the mark that is for those shows.

That’s why as much as I love profilers, "Criminal Minds" may be dropping from my list pretty soon. Criminologist ubergeek Dr. Reed used to be a front and center character in that show along with technogeek Penelope Garcia but they’re selling more Activia with Shemar Moore -- who incidentally I remember from “Birds of Prey” and other people remember from soap operas -- so they’re putting him in charge and demoting the dashing grim-faced Jack Webb-type Agent Hotchner (Thomas Gibson from "Dharma & Greg") I like to bring up "Dharma & Greg" whenever I can in relation to "Criminal Minds" because it was as silly as anything and highlights what a different character Gibson is playing -- now in a backseat to Moore. Meanwhile, that duo’s former Dharma Jenna Elfman is turning in a fantastic character on CBS’ reasonably well-written comedy "Accidentally on Purpose," so … well, it’s fun seeing both of them.

Sons of Anarchy

Speaking of profilers, it’s good to see my longtime love Ally Walker’s recent guest appearances in "Sons of Anarchy." Ally played profiler Samantha Waters in the ‘90s crime drama "Profiler" and, along with most notably Katey Sagal as Jemma Teller Morrow, "Sons of Anarchy" has been really good at finding actresses of a certain age and letting them come on and be tough as a cheap steak. These women would give "In Plain Sight"s U.S. Marshall Mary Shannon a run for her money and can still work the charm. I had a five-hour pileup of "Sons of Anarchy" to fight through this past week and it was like watching a movie. Show creator Kurt Sutter, formerly of "The Shield," has acquitted himself well in this FX drama.

Drop Dead Diva

In other shows you might have missed, turns out Jane Bingham is married. Capping off the first season of “Drop Dead Diva,” model Deb’s soul in big-girl Jane’s body has spent a little time here and there learning about herself -- like when she discovered that she regularly meets the judge played by Rosie O’Donnell for Scrabble, when she decided to weekend in Napa Valley with her new boyfriend and oh yes, the time right at the end where she discovered that she is MARRIED.

Now, I don’t know how you accidentally miss that you’re married. You tend to have joint bank accounts, you have documents, you have a ring on your finger. Surely your assistant knows you’re married. Apart from your guardian angel who’s been living in the apartment of the body you took over, quite apart from Judge Rosie, any friends that are in your life (because you’ve quite unavoidably got friends in your life even if your body is taken over by someone else’s soul) she’s a LAWYER! How has she not learned in three months that SHE’S MARRIED?!

Sigh. It’s a Lifetime drama. Well, dramedy. So just when things were in a great place to wrap it up and safely ignore any more silliness (it was cute, but I was about at my "Drop Dead Diva" limit), now I’ve got to tune in when it comes back to find out what’s up with this out-of-the-blue husband of hers who never writes, never calls and never made any kind of impact on her life. Does she have some kids out there, too? Seriously, when you die and come back to life in someone else’s body you really ought to do a bit of due diligence.

The Prisoner

IFC is running classic episodes of “The Prisoner” -- the next one is this Friday -- and it’s a charming little "Avengers"-era puzzle of an ex British secret agent -- that is, an ex secret agent who is a British person, rather than a secret agent who is no longer British -- who is kidnapped from his London flat and wakes up in a tiny, bizarre little village where closed-circuit television is used to spy on his every waking move and odd government operatives are deployed to meddle in his life in irksome ways.

So really it’s just a forward-looking complaint against post-Thatcherite England.

No, seriously, it’s a little post-modern with the strange, theatrical characters popping in and out and all of the "Avengers" backlot and art direction at its disposal, but mostly it’s just weird for the sake of weird. That said, I enjoy weird for the sake of weird and am also looking forward to the series reboot with Jim Caviezel opposite Ian McKellen next month on AMC.

Sanctuary

Oh, and it didn’t take long for "Sanctuary" to return to this irritating creature of the week storyline. It looked like it was going to be vaguely interesting, the Sanctuary team countering a well-resourced worldwide criminal conspiracy but this past week we spent 30 minutes tracking a baby lizard that all too quickly became a big scary lizard into the sewers, stalking creepy things in the darkness, pardon my channeling Bernadette Peters but suspense is another word for nothing is happening, and that’s right where I was getting really bored with it last season so feel free to ignore it. It looked liked there was a glimmer of something there but … no, dull. Boring.

Ugly Betty

More interesting is the premiere of "Ugly Betty," where the subplot du jour is that Betty’s sister Hilda is trying to raise extra money for her fabulous son, Justin, to attend private school, because kids are picking on him this season in public school.

I’d be more sympathetic, here, but honestly the child accessorizes, and also because in a New York public school there is still a perfectly good support structure for this child in the school’s drama department. It’s not even stereotypical because Justin is actually involved in theater. I think this storyline is exploring a reality parents of gay teens face that they can’t shield their children from every battle, and Marc, Betty’s archnemesis at work played by the inimitable Michael Urie, has stepped up as a mentor for him, which is damn’ decent of him. Also, it’s kind of cool that ABC is spending some time on this subplot because the rate of suicide attempts among gay teens are still something like four times that of straight teens and there aren’t a huge number of gay role models or even characters on network television.

But yes, Ugly Betty is back. She’s been promoted to assistant editor this season, and she’s brought with her a little more confidence, a striking new look and yes, she still gets into all manner of misadventure trying to balance her work life and home life and heart life, and she’s surrounded by outrageous characters, but the show is still so cute it pulls it off.

Along with there not being a lot of gay characters on television I’m not encountering a lot of Hispanic business owners, young professionals and government officials on television, and I’ve got to say, this show promotes the culture with respect while maintaining the fun. There hasn’t been a lot of discussion about religion, presumably Catholicism, in relation to Jamie, but one imagines that if that becomes necessary, it too will be handled with respect.

Psych

Finally, "Psych" aired its fall finale recently and I’m officially bummed out. I have so much love for fake psychic detective Shawn Spencer and his best friend Gus and I’m going to miss them until they return in January. They went out on a high note, however -- how much information can a kidnapped Shawn communicate about his location in a short text message sent out to some very smart people? Ultimately, enough for them to locate him and save his life. We had armored car robberies! Daring escapes! Car chases! Shawn jumping from one vehicle to another! It was an excellent fall finale and won’t anything like tide me over until the show returns, but I suppose it will have to.

Monk

It seems USA is going to air its new comic detective drama "White Collar" all but continuously between now and then -- it’s getting a lot of airtime with this being premiere weekend -- but more to the point, we had the return of SHARONA on this weekend’s production of "Monk."

Sharona, played by the magnificent Bitty Schram, was multiphobic detective Adrian Monk’s assistant for the first three seasons of the show until Traylor Howard took over as Natalie Teeger. Sharona returns from New Jersey to settle the estate of her con artist uncle, who Monk is 72 percent certain staged the accident that a confederate then took a step further and murdered him. Sharona doesn’t care. She just wants the settlement money to send Benji to college. As the show continues, and she’s drawn back into Monk’s world and gains a sense of her estranged uncle’s humanity, she comes around and wants to see justice done. And in the end, she manages to keep the settlement money, too. All’s well that ends well, and it was truly fun to see Bitty Schram again.

I do have to say, this final season of "Monk" has really stepped it up. I liked the recent reconciliation or at least truce with longtime nemesis Harold Krenshaw, Monk’s showdown with a flimflam defense attorney played by Jay Mohr and his hopping into a Dumpster to escape a hitman (which was a nice misdirect on Natalie’s part to trick him into attending his own birthday). Every now and then there are some character issues where -- oh, most recently, to escape a fight between Sharona and Natalie, he hopped into a cab and had actual money with him, which is out of character. But despite these comedy-driven lapses, I think they’re building to something good. The cab took him to the graveside of his late wife, Trudy, and it would be so cool if there were a couple of breaks in that case by the series finale in December.

"Sons of Anarchy" continues Tuesdays at 10/9c on FX, and Friday nights are on fire with classic episodes of "The Prisoner" at 9/8c on IFC, "Ugly Betty" at 9/8c on ABC, and "Monk" at 9/8c on USA. And essentially the same CBS crime drama is airing over and over again, you can catch it any time all week on CBS.

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