Let me summarize last night's episode of 24...Jack Bauer wanted to torture an 11-month old.
























Reread that. 11-MONTH old. Thankfully for everyone's soul involved, he didn't go through with it.

And that was not to prevent a nuclear bomb, an airplane crash or anything involving thousands of people. That was to save the president's husband. Let it be said that there is no excuse too flimsy for Jack to think it justified to torture some. At least the writers thought that Jack torturing a newborn in an incubator to save the White House silverware would have been a bit too far. We'll have to wait till season 8 or possibly sweeps for that one.

The writers of this show must be really pissed about Obama's victory. This season has been filled with even more torture and sneering at hippie types. You know, like the "justice department" who want to "help the terrorists" by "following the laws." The lessons I've learned this season so far are: Torture totally works. It's really fast and really effective. The information is always credible. There is no good moral argument against it. People who are not willing to torture as their first option don't care about the country or at least are missing the big picture. It's ok to torture because our enemies are doing it and they are bad people. Don't think too much about the last one because it would mean that if people who torture are evil, and we torture then it mean that we are !#! (cognitive dissonance enabled) perfectly within our rights to do whatever the hell we want to our enemies.

In tonight's episode when the FBI director said "Following the rules is what makes us better" to which Jack responded, "Not today." He might as well have said "Fuck you, pussy."


Alright I'm gonna go torture me up some food.

Yeah

So I decided that I do like Burn Notice, but I wouldn't put too much stock in the first episode in the second season. It served as a good primer for those that have not seen the first season, covering all the main characters and introducing the enemy(?) for the second season.

Thinking about this show that I realized that you generally can't take it too seriously. I know that it's a B-show which means it has to simplify stories so that things don't get too complicated, but that's clearly not why I watch it. If that were the case I'd be watching The Wire (should I be watching The Wire? I've heard it favorably compared with Homicide). No, what I want is the is what most of the other good B-action shows offer: cheesy action, intrigue (Charlie's Angels), elaborate planning (A-Team), and Macguyverish science (Knight Rider...no wait Macguyver's a better example.)

Burn Notice does really have a lot of similarities with all the previously mentioned shows and it does well at mixing the best parts of all of them. It doesn't have a talking car, but it does have Bruce Campbell who is awesome in a different way.

P.S. I have only seen one or two episodes of Charlie's Angels but it just fits in with that style of show.

Oh my god the second season of Burn Notice has started!

Wait...

Do I even like that show?

Did anyone watch Lewis Black: The Root of All Evil? I was tremendously excited when I found out he was getting his own show. That feeling lasted about 10 seconds into the first episode. This show was not good, really not good. Nothing against Greg Giraldo or Paul F. Tompkins (who is awesome), but this show was really missing one big thing, namely Lewis Black.

Everything about this show seemed really fake, overscripted and overproduced. I thought Comedy Central just reused the set from Beat the Geeks (Side note: Whatever happened to that show? I remember enjoying it). The jokes that they were supplied were hacky and unfunny. I mean Oprah and the Catholic Church? Did doing Monica Lewinsky jokes seem too dated? All the comedians existing in the alternative comedy world (maybe not Giraldo) excel at their own oddball observations and humor. Given such mundane topics it's no surprise that all the jokes were so obvious. Oprah is an egomaniac, the Catholic Church allowed boy-fucking and repeat for 22 minutes. The last hope was for the comedians just to deliver this crappy material in their trademark characters. This worked well enough for Tompkins and Giraldo, but Lewis Black really suffered. He looked the most out of place there as all his comments seemed to add nothing to what was going on and seemed added as an afterthought.

Up until the second commercial break, I was convinced that the laughter was piped in. And after seeing the one quick audience shot I was convinced. They seemed to be sitting very orderly and looked bored. They would have made great extras in a Kraftwerk video.

Barring a rapid overhaul of the show's format and writing staff, I do not predict good things for this show. (Won't even last as long as Beat the Geeks)

Why didn't they just do 22 minutes of Back in Black, you know, the thing everyone loves?

So this show is finally over and we had to sit through an hour long recap show to get to the obvious answer. I think everyone watching the show was rooting for Dave and Jasmine and as this was put up for a popularity contest there was absolutely no suspense as they opened their envelope.

The recap show was actually a bit nice as we got to see that their "transformations" hold somewhat. There were some embarrassing bits where Josh had to strip and present his girlfriend. Sam and Jen were, I'm going to guess here, forced into an awkward hug.

All in all I'm glad that all contestants have something to show for their effort.

This seems like a terrible time to write about TV the writers are on strike and I've been working like a donkey and have only now caught up with the latest episodes of most of my shows. This is more due to the fact that since the writers strike has cut a lot of shows short.

I'm looking forward to the next season of Weeds. The season finale was really good but not as suspenseful as promised.

On my flight back from SLC I happened to catch one or two episode of the original Kitchen NIghtmares on BBC America. The original British version is light years ahead of its American counterpart.

Firstly, Gordon Brown did his own narration which already made it a lot more tolerable to watch. It felt like I was watching an actual documentary about a failing restaurant being slowly turned around, rather than an hour long trailer for a restaurant being immediately turned around by some Gordon Brown magic. Gordon Brown goes through what he thinks everyone in the restaurant is doing wrong and how they themselves can improve it. There is always plenty of blame to spread and most importantly the change comes from the staff rather than Brown.

The British version is so much more palatable and I wish I could watch more of it. Unfortunately, since I have stopped watching KN entirely and the T.V. Club has stopped covering it I won't find out if the American version has gotten any better. After watching three seasons of Hell's Kitchen, I would imagine that the answer is a big NO!

Beauty and the Geek

The basic premise of the show is that it has transformative powers. In that way I find it very hard to believe that Will and Jen will win. In my mind Josh and Shay, and Jasmine and Dave are the most transformed. Sam and Nicole seemed ready for the game and have not had any great transformation. Sam's streak of winning appears attributed to his "studying" or producer involvement, if the TV club is to be believed. Either way, the latter would imply that Sam and Nicole will and the former would imply that Jasmine and Dave will win. Now in 2 of the past 3 seasons the underdog came back to win against the favorite once again tilting the win in favor of Jasmine and Dave.

I'm talking as if it's the finals already but in my mind Will and Jen are a foregone conclusion. I was surprised that they managed to stick around this week let alone last week. Will is such a horrendous person so sold on himself that he basically refuses to accept any criticism. We haven't managed to learn much about Jen since Will is a black hole of negative attention.

Nip/Tuck

Glad Portia de Rosi is a cast member. Although It'll be hard to shake the specter of Lindsey Bluth for me. I keep expecting her to say something funny.

In LA most of the people they encounter seem to be a lot more plastic than in Miami. Not just clients, but almost everyone. Even Ollie's daughter struck me as built out of fake plastic body parts. I guess the point is that this is a virtue in LA. I wonder how they manage to find actors to play their clients. Was the man addicted to plastic surgery an actual plastic surgery addict who was also an actor or an actor with a lot of make up on?

They seem to find good twists to keep themselves going. Julia coming out seems fairly tame compared to the previous seasons. More intrigue to come I'm sure.

To NYC people who may not have Facebook. I am back in Ardsley for a while. I will be here till the 17th, when I will fly to SLC for a conference. I will be bck on Wednesday morning and will leave on Saturday the 24th.¨¨

I have also not watched TV in a while, which explaions my lack of posting.

Pushing Daisies

A darker episode this time. Both in terms of story and color.

We started with a flashback to Ned's lonely boarding school days. That was pretty depressing right there. It got even worse when Ned finally saw his father with his new family. This is probably the first time I felt sad for Ned, not just mildly uncomfortable. This was also followed by two murders and one attempted murder of Olive. A twist that most people probably saw 5 minutes before it was revealed, but still good stuff all around.

I don't have so much to say as I'm on the verge of passing out.

"In other news, Kittens on Parade!"

I was simply running experiments yesterday which involves pushing a button, waiting 2 hours, moving stuff around and pushing the same button again. This allowed me to catch up on last week's TV that I missed as well as keep up to date on the stuff I actually watch

Thanks to Jesse for the shoutout.

Heroes

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Claire sucks! This week she and her boyfriend devised a cunning plan to get back at the head cheerleader by him dropping Claire from high up, having the cheerleader witness it and go to the police only to have Claire reappear unharmed. High school is so much less interesting in real life than it is in TV. I went to two different high schools and they were both about the same. No one had elaborate revenge plans to get someone kicked off the cheerleading squad, but I guess Ardsley cheerleading wasn't exactly competitive and Trinity cheerleading wasn't exactly existent. I also don't think these one-off public humiliations would actually upset the social hierarchy of people that much. And seriously I don't think one person could hijack an entire team. Doesn't this school have teachers. In all six episodes I have seen only one teacher.

Bennett and the Haitian had the worst torture methods ever. They remove memories from their prisoner's detainee's mind.

"Remember meeting your wife?"
"No"
"Yeah!!! Now tell me what I want to know!"
My answer to this would be once again "No," with a mildly annoyed look on my face.

Bennett finds the painting that don't really tell us much. One has Hiro, another Peter with a gun and the one with Bennett dead.

Peter is in Montreal now and someone was expecting him...so that's something

I really disliked the device that Anto found the scrolls and was thus we are able to see Hiro's story, but I got over it this week. I'm finally getting into this story. We finally got a bit of intrigue when Hiro falls in love with the swordsmith's daughter and Kensei witnesses them kiss. Since this is all supposed to take place in the past I assume that Hiro and Kensei work together and defeat White Beard or that Hiro takes over the role and beats White Beard himself under the name Kensei. Since this is all taking place in the past I'm going to take the determinist standpoint and say that they must succeed because otherwise nothing else in the future we are watching will happen. This would be different to changing the future like they did last season. I'm sure I'll be pissed off again by next week when Anto accidentally finds another way to follow more of Hiro's story.

Weeds

For a successful drug dealer Susan really has no ideas who her enemies are or what her weaknesses are. Celia tried to blackmail her and she finally acted like a real drug dealer and threatened to kill her. Finally we have dealing with some attitude instead of a naive smile. Celia asked to be in on the business which Susan happily obliged by moving her grow house to hers.

Andy then walked into a trap where some rival drug dealer asked him about his business and showed that he knew all about Susan. I guess that's the nature of starting a new drug business. You are unaware of competition since they don't really advertise. Conrad had a similar moment when the fire marshal had to inspect their original grow house which he had no idea about.

This was more of a resetting episode and there will be more to come for sure next week.

Pushing Daisies

I had the feeling that I had an old episode of Pushing Daisies somewhere on my computer and thanks to the magic of the search function I found it in my home directory.

First I have to say that this episode touched me. At the mention of "Birdhouse in Your Soul" I had a smile on my face. When they actually started singing it, it almost bought a tear of joy to my eye... a manly tear of joy. I liked the scenes that take place in cars. They have this olde time feel to them with the colorful rear view, like I'm watching an old cartoon or reading a storybook. Is it me or does this show's colors seem to be get brighter and brighter every week?'

I thought they were about to blow their second big chance for a seasonal arc this week when Chuck almost ran into her aunts. Considering they anticlimactically had him tell Chuck that someone else dies if the people he brings back stay alive. The only other secret he has left is the fact that it was Chuck's father. But this aunt thing should last us a few episodes.

I think the mysteries they have are a bit lacking. The first week, with the Dandelion car, was a nice premise, but had a fairly predictable twist. This week had a great setup, but an unsatisfying twist in that the villain gets involved in his own love story.

What bothered me this episode is that there was no bad guy at all. Olive was conniving to get Chuck to meet her aunts, but changed her mind at the last second. Lefty first appeared as a murderer, but then it turned out that the plane crash was an accident caused by the pigeon and that his only intention was to get some diamonds. Then seems happy enough to go back to jail once he's found love. It's like all the villains are just the Grinch.

I wish the storybooks I read as a kid had more murder!

The last two weeks have been really rough for me. I have a deadline on my measurements and I have been working around the clock. This has meant that there are shows piling up on my HD, and I tend to watch them days late.

I didn't even realize that I had missed an episode of both 30 Rock and The Office. I am finally caught up (I think) and read to go (for now).

30 Rock

Strong as usual. I was a little afraid that the Kenneth centered stories get a bit absurd with the whole page fight scene, but luckily Pete came down and set things straight. I mean I can buy that there is a hit TV show with a mentally ill star, but I can't buy that if Kenneth burned his jacket that anyone would care. And even if the pages did care, Kenneth could have just asked Jack.

I wonder how much of 30 Rock is just poking fun at SNL. I got the feeling that when they were talking about pushing the envelope in the 60's they were saying how little SNL push the envelope now. Although I haven't seen an SNL in years I never found their political satire all that biting. I always thought they looked for the cast member who did the best impression on any given president and let that be most of the sketch.

Jack's impression of Tracy was amazingly good. I laughed uncontrollably.

The Office

One week after one of the most depressing episodes, where I was actually worried that Michael was going to commit suicide, we get a Michael succeeds episode. I certainly think his commercial was better that the standard one with them waving, or at least it wasn't hilariously bad.

I actually forgot about 2nd Life totally till I met a quiz night regular at the pub who had been telling me about his 2nd life avatar on Thursday. I wonder if it's even possible to make a 3rd Life in 2nd Life.

Jim's avatar was the first time that we've seen Jim's interest in anything. He likes sports....well that's something. The only other time we see Jim as more than the guy who hates work and like Pam is when he had a party at his place a few seasons ago.

I am officially done with Kitchen Nightmares.

Heroes

Watching the second season come together, I have to say that it seems a lot more shabbily put together. I know they are all leading up to something but about half of the storylines seem very uninteresting. But let us not dwell on this whole shitty "company" business. I am much more interested in who is killing the older generation of heroes.

We finally got to get some quality time with Hiro and Peter. I think the last few episodes they let them slide out of the picture to concentrate on Claire.

I don't like how Ando suddenly finds the scrolls in the sword. It seems a bit of a cheat so they could communicate. They've been doing that a lot recently. Molly being adopted by Parkman, Mohinder's lab being in Isaac's loft. I wish they would move Hiro's bit along more. It seems we have learned all we needed to learn and now they are just continuing with missions that are going nowhere.

HOORAY!!!!!! KRISTEN BELL IS BACK AND EVIL!!!! Working anyway. Although she is apparently part of the "company," which means being involved with Mohinder and the Bennets but that won't be for much later. Right now she is trying to track down Peter and she has superpowers to boot! Peter has finally opened the box to not much information. He didn't recognize his brother and that was about it.

Meanwhile Nathan and Parkman are trying to get some answers from Parkman Sr, who seems to have his own odd ability. He's the nightmare man and not Sylar but I don't think he's the one killing the first generation of heroes. That would be too obvious this early. He won't be around for too long as I predict that he actually will get killed and fairly soon.

I don't know what Mohinder's role in the company is, but he sucks at his job. I mean I know he's a double agent but he should at least try and put up airs that he's doing his job.

Weeds

I love how problems never go away in the show. I guess that's the life of a drug dealer. We went from having a DEA agent blackmailing, to a neighbor sabotaging, to a gangster extorting, to a vengeful ex-wife, to a private investigator blackmailing, back to the neighbor. And this happened in the span of 11 episodes. The show does well to give show the light at the end of the tunnel and then have it disappear within the last 30 seconds of the show.

I feel really bad for Dean and am very surprised that Celia hasn't ended up in jail by herself. It seems like the bad guys in the show do all the things you wish the good guys would, torture and blackmail. I mean they're already drug dealers might as well do it right like U-turn.

House

So after a week on my computer I finally watched last week's House. None on the interviwees got fired this week, but they now have cute nicknames. The stone-cold bitch managed to manipulate both Cameron, in the way that made me hate Cameron most of all, and Chase. I honestly don't know who is going to be fired next. The twins would probably be good candidates. They haven't done much.

The clinic related story was very strange and I think it was forced into the story very awkwardly. Even House's fake suicide attempt was a bit uncalled for. The whole thing about the afterlife seemed rushed into and not really part of the whole story. They basically added 10 minutes to try and justify one line.

It looks like Foreman might be returning to Princeton. I could tell from the second I saw him being positive with his team and trying to encourage them, that this was not going to end well. It's hard to see him in the role of leader compared to House.

Any cute Wilsonisms?

The Simpsons

The first Marge centered episode in a long time, and Homer didn't get a new job of hostage negotiator. The one joke about Hostage Negotiator was laziness on par with Family Guy. But otherwise the episode was very solid. I've realized over the last three weeks of complaining that the jokes are overall good, definitely watchable, but not on par with the days of yore. So no more complaining.

I generally dislike Marge stories. They mostly involve her trying to rehabilitate something. She nags and nags and in the end gets nothing accomplished. This was a little bit different with less nagging and more worrying. Was that Steve Buscemi's voice?

King Of The Hill

OK, so still no Peggy Hill episode. This week we were treated to both a Boomhauer main story as well as two subplots involving classic Bill behavior as well as Hank getting Bobby out of trouble. Although this time Boomhauer came in to save them all.

Is it bad that I get sad whenever Bill is happy? I think it's the appropriate response, since Bill thrives on really bad negative attention. The Heatwaver is a pretty good name for a super hero.

American Dad

Another week of a solid American Dad. Stan discovers he has no friends until he find a guy who is both a right wing Republican and a paddle boat enthusiast. Things are great until he discovers that his friend is an atheist. Trying to get him to believe, Stan accidentally makes him commit suicide. But he has a near death experience where he meets Satan and vows to go back to Earth and round up people for Satan's army. This is a pretty creative story and shows what I've saying all along, that story driven episodes on any show are much better than wacky jokes.

The subplot was Steve making crack while he thought he was at Hogwarts. You'd think that a 12-year-old would know that Harry Potter is actually made up but that's TV for you. "Lavate las manos!" Kudos to American Dad, winner of this week's prize for.....nothing special.

Pushing Daisies

This show is good. This show is very good. This show is really very good.

The second episode of Pushing Daisies did well to continue with the momentum of the pilot. There is a lot less premise to set up so it told a real story.

One thing to notice about TV that is considered good, and I think I've emphasized this many times, is that it starts with a story and builds it's humorous (or dramatic) events around that instead of the other way around. This was perfectly illustrated by the Japanese visitors to the car plant. On a lesser show this would have been the central bit, but in Pushing Daisies I can't name a specific joke that occurred, only that the entire sequence was hilarious to watch.

The story itself was a bit far-fetched, which, for a show about a guy who can bring people back from the dead, wasn't that much stranger, but I think I enjoy shows more that add an incredible premise to ordinary life a la Heroes. No matter the odd stories, I look forward to seeing a lot more from this show "too good for TV"

Aside: Seriously, how does a show on TV have this good production?

Heroes

Hiro and Peter are still trapped far away from everyone else. Sylar returned but doesn't seem to have his powers back which makes for an interesting twist. Before he was an unstoppable homicidal psychopath and now he ahs limitations and will have to learn to deal with not being able to take over the world. That is until whoever was holding him uses him for their plan. One question I always had about Sylar was how his power work actually. It must be something physical because he was able to do it to Candice. Is he eating people's brains?

Nikki and Mika are back and I couldn't care less. I had sorta forgotten about them completely.

Mohinder's lab is Isaac's old art studio? That makes absolutely no sense. I can buy the premise that people have developed super powers. I was a bit skeptical when Mohinder's blood is the only blood that can cure that illness. But making an art studio into a biology lab overnight and have Mohinder working while they're still moving out the paintings is utterly retarded. I know it's just so that Mohinder can see the painting and tell Jack about it, but there must have been a better way to do that. Or they are strapped for cash and couldn't build new sets.

Weeds

It's easy to forget, because his SNL days were so long ago, that Kevin Nealon is hilarious. There was something about his dance at the end of the episode when the sewage pipe burst that was just hysterical.

I'm glad that Indian kid is out of the closet.

I really miss U-turn. He added a much needed element of danger into the show. I was hoping Marvin could take over that, but that fizzled out really fast. Now it's all on Conrad and Halia.

Ah Tuesday, where I write about the shows I watched on Monday that aired on Sunday.

The Simpsons

This was another of the Homer-gets-a-new-job episodes. The subplot which I enjoyed a bit more was that Maggie becomes more independent. Homer goes mad with power operating a tow truck and then gets imprisoned by a rival until Maggie with her new-found independence comes and saves him. I wish we could have a story based on another character.

The show isn't bad and as Jesse pointed out last week that on a second viewing later you will probably find it funnier. There are always some good jokes, but the problem these days is that I'm not sure if that the hidden jokes are timeless. Maybe they don't need to be timeless, but it means that these seasons are less likely to be funny later. I don't know if the Entourage sequence would be funny to people who don't watch Entourage or to anyone in 10 years. But in any case I don't plan to stop watching.

King Of The Hill

Three episodes in and there hasn't been a Peggy-centered episode yet. Don't worry. It'll make it that much sweeter when it finally arrives. She did have a subplot, but the main part was about Bobby taking part in powderpuff cheerleading.

I think one of the main reasons this show has stayed on for 12 years is that this show is really popular in middle America. The writers take a conservative viewpoint on how things should be and are good at showing how a very liberal attitude, thought not wrong, can be hypocritical. The boys aren't allowed to dress like girls and pretend to be cheerleaders because that would be making fun of the girls, but they are allowed to dress up and pretend to be cheerleaders as long as they say they are transsexuals, because the PTA doesn't want to discriminate against transsexuals. Now I don't want to get into a discussion about fairness and diversity and I don't think they really want to either, but they are saying there is a common sense approach that will get most people through most situations without offending anyone. This show is about showing the hypocrisy of people who will be offended by almost anything.

C'mon Peggy Hill episode!

Family Guy

Well done on the Hitler cut-away! But of course you know that acknowledging your own problems is not the same as solving them.

American Dad

This is the second episode that was like one of those pulp fiction detection novels from the 50's. Stan goes on a power trip as a meter maid trying to be a somebody. Maybe I said this last week, but they are doing a much better job at surrealism than Family Guy. Come to think of it, this episode was very similar to a Simpsons where Homer gets a new job. The only difference between these shows is that The SImpsons is supposed to be grounded in reality and American Dad is not. They have moved away from politics too, which is good because they sucked at it.

I just have one note about Kitchen Nightmares. This show is complete and utter bullshit! The premise for the UK version is that Gordon Brown can turn around a failing restaurant. The premise for the US version is that Gordon Brown can turn around a failing restaurant...by paying for its renovation, redesigning its menu himself and doing all the promotion. The summary is that Gordon Brown knows how to run a successful restaurant, which I already knew. This show also suffers from the over-the-top editing and annoying narrator from Hell's Kitchen.

On a brighter note, my first opinion of The Sarah Silverman Program was that this show was not all that funny. After the first episode of season 2, it's beginning to grow on me. The first episode was about Sarah getting mixed up with militant anti-abortionists. What I like is that Sarah, as the hero of this show, lives in her own world and anyone who doesn't live in crazy-town is ridiculed. This was clearly shown by Brian Posehn and his D&D playing friends. They play for 2 days (or 20 years) and Steve is the crazy one for pointing out that it's morning, while they argue over how overcast it is.

The Office

So it seems Ryan is going to be a more permanent part of the show. I was thinking about him as he's still in the theme song.

It seems that every character in the show said or did at least one hilarious thing, so I don't want to dwell on it, but it really shows that this is becoming more of an ensemble and less of a crazy-boss centered show like the UK version became.

Creed has changed his age for the second week in a row.

30 Rock

I missed this show SO much. Watching it today I thought to myself, how is this show still on TV? Isn't this one of those shows that's "too good" for TV? I don't understand how a TV show that constantly ridicules the process of making TV is still on. But I don't complain. I bask in its brilliance.

My favorite bit was first the concept of Seinfeldvision and how it didn't seem all that far fetched and Jenna getting fat. In a hurry so will not write too much. Super happy that this is back.

P.S. Thank God they have this restore from draft feature now because I just quit Safari instead of posting