Bare 'Bones': Booth pops the question

I don’t know what to tell you this week. I’ve had too much going on to really watch much television. I did figure out who Tommy Jefferson was in the Kathy Bates production of David E. Kelley’s “Harry’s Law.” He’s Denny Crane! Denny Crane, William Shatner’s character from David E. Kelley’s “Boston Legal.”

Denny Crane is of course ridiculous, but Tommy Jefferson doesn’t have the mad cow, and that was clear enough when he made the argument he made to keep his case against fast food companies from being summarily dismissed before a Cincinnati district court judge -- a judge patently opposed to Tommy Jefferson’s style of bombast.

David E. Kelley’s forced himself into these situations in the past, created characters then dropped them into antithetical situations. He pits courtroom rivals amid romantic liaisons between defense attorney Bobby Donnell and assistant district attorney Helen Gamble, Asperger’s sufferer Jerry Espensen against hoot and a half Melvin Palmer. He pairs Denny Crane romantically with Bethany Horowitz, all the more fun when they do that long-running joke of Denny saying something about her then looking down to realize she’s in the room with them. But I’ve gone on for paragraphs about the late great “Boston Legal,” when the show is “Harry’s Law”! And not so much title character Harriet Korn as side character Tommy Jefferson.

Well, never mind about that, other critics have been crowing about how David E. Kelley can’t progress, and that this show is a warmed over lack of interest from past projects. Nonsense. Me, I think this stuff is brilliant. The same critics -- and I’m looking at you, "Hollywood Reporter," think “Traffic Light” is hysterical.

"Traffic Light"

“Traffic Light” turned in a little self-contained pilot where three friends – including a hipster writer at a men’s magazine who reminded me way too much of a friend of mine in college – arrange a memorial for another friend at a stadium. For some reason I’m sure is going to contribute in some way to the storyline, one of the friends is British. He seems to be sort of a serial monogamist, where he’s got the art of the breakup down to a science. The guy who reminded me of my friend in college is moving in with his girlfriend, and the other friend, the married with kids friend, the one who isn’t dead, is married and has kids, and his wife, from his perspective, is really demanding, but he hides in his car down the block watching DVDs while she’s been taking care of the kids for the last 15 hours straight so I’m afraid he’s not gaining a lot of sympathy from me and damn but I think I was supposed to be sympathetic to him. Sure, everyone works really hard and kids are a commitment but hiding from them, not cool.

They seem to spend a lot of their not-at-work time on conference calls and at bars or just generally trying to escape from their women. As we met them, College Friend was getting pulled over for some reason and they pulled the cop into a conversation about his girlfriend moving in. There was also something about British friend broken up by his most recent breakup which somehow turned in to Move-In Girlfriend joining them at the bar to console him and now he had to actually pretend to have liked Former Girlfriend, who it turns out is getting back together with him because she heard how broken up he was.

All sorts of other stuff happened too, including Married Friend dressing up as a chainsaw wielding professional wrestling clown at exactly the same time and in exactly the same building as Stressed-Out Wife needed him to be at a work social-type thing and she had to go alone and when she found out it was of course some huge betrayal for which she’d be exacting revenge for months and oh my God, these are grown men encountering the most ridiculous problems, problems that could be solved by picking up the damn’ phone. And the women in their lives, is there a more demanding woman in the world than a woman on a sitcom? Clingy, needy, honey stay in tonight we’ve got to put contact paper on the shelves. Really, no, you don’t, but of course the only solution is to tell a ridiculous lie, the easier to see through and pick apart, the better. Honestly.

The title, you’re going to love this, the title came from an unnecessary anecdote from Dead Friend’s memorial service, insisting they take the most traffic light-infested approach to Chicago on a senior trip or something, and sometimes it’s green and it’s smooth sailing. And sometimes it’s yellow and you pause and enjoy the woman you’re with. And sometimes it’s red and you stop with the woman you’re with and realize you’re pretty happy.

This made no sense, but at least in the closing reprise Same Cop as Before got to check out a cell-phone photo of Move-In girlfriend’s nekkid “traffic lights” and assured College Friend he’s a lucky man.

As you can tell I didn’t care for this, but like I said, other people apparently wet themselves over it, so you can go ahead and judge for yourself. That’s “Traffic Light” airing at 9:30/8:30c on FOX.

"Mr. Sunshine"

I’ll have more to say about Matthew Perry’s “Mr. Sunshine” in my column cast next week but can I say for now, for the record, I loved the pilot episode. Between Perry and Allison Janney there was a nice little “West Wing” vibe although they’re playing totally different characters, who cares, it was a huge amount of fun, that’s “Mr. Sunshine” at 9:30/8:30c Wednesdays on ABC. It hasn’t completely earned the “Cougar Town” spot in my opinion, but it’s pretty entertaining.

"Bones"

FOX continued to irritate me this week with an episode of “Bones” that featured Booth proposing to Hannah. Hannah, who met and bonded with his child, Hannah, who he met in war-torn Afghanistan and who declared his love long ago and proposed to her, she says “no.”

For God’s sake why does this keep happening to Booth? He’s got a complex now about women rejecting him. He’s angry, he’s clearly quite angry now, and it seems like this is going to make him quite resentful. Seriously, how do you do that to someone you claim to love? “I’m not the marrying type.” Hannah, he stepped to you. He stepped up, he’s a great dad and a stand-up guy and he looks like that. Seriously, this is the kind of thing where … OK, fine, title of the show, we all want Booth and Brennan to hook up, but honestly that train may have sailed. The things they’ve been through together, they aren’t together by now they’re just not going to be, and dammit one of them should have a shot at happiness.

Hannah’s dead to me. “Bones” airs at 9/8c Thursdays on FOX.

"Human Target"

“Human Target” turned in a strange second season finale. Ilsa learned something new about her husband. She thought he was having an affair, and she found out he was just helping some aid worker, except the aid worker was a decoy meant to infiltrate Chance’s operation on the orders of Allison Dubois’ husband from “Medium,” Jake Weber. He, a rogue operative with the CIA, targeted Ilsa to track down a little chip disc with some information on it, and they tracked it to a hotel and they turned the tables on the bad guys and it all left me a little breathless but I think since Guerrero got to walk away from an exploding car in slow-motion, complete with slow-motion bird, and there’s still a nice little vibe between Chance and Ilsa, well, assuming it’s renewed, I look forward to season the third.

Coming up

This week Chuck gets to meet some of Sarah’s hot sexy spy friends on their way to their bachelorette party, that’s “Chuck” Monday at 8/7c on NBC. Also, Harry’s already facing disbarment on “Harry’s Law,” 10/9c on NBC. “Grey’s Anatomy” has what looks like it’s going to be a real-time episode which should be exciting on some level, that’s 9/8c Thursday on ABC. Also on Thursday, it looks like they’re running installments two and three and four of the “Saw” franchise on Syfy if that’s interesting, starting at 7/6c. They’re airing “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” at 8:30/7:30c on the Sundance Channel which sounded interesting to me when I first heard about it. And they’re running the Clint Eastwood 1969 original “True Grit” starting at 8/7c Friday on AMC.

Finally, BBC America premieres the third season opener of “Being Human,” following several chances to catch past episodes during the week, afternoons and after hours, so if you’ve missed them, set those DVRs. The third season opens with Annie in purgatory, and over the course of the second season the show became better and better as it went so I’m absolutely looking forward to its return, that’s Saturday at 9/8c on BBC America. Enjoy!