Here in My Car

A lot of people don't know this about me: I love cars. I love looking at pictures of them. I love watching car chases in movies. I love singing along to Gary Numan's Cars.

A lot of people know this about me: I hate driving. Despite the fact that I've dreamed of owning a Saab Turbo 900 convertible since 1986, would pay any amount of money for a vintage Ford Mustang, and am still lamenting the loss of my mother's bitchin' yellow 1969 Camaro, my desire to drive is about on par with my desire for root canal. And it's not even that I just don't enjoy being the driver. I'm not much on being a passenger either. I just get all cooped up and antsy in an automobile and would just as soon use my feet whenever possible. And don't even think that's cuz I'm such a big fan of nature and being outdoors. Trust me, it's not. Suffice it to say, while a cross-country move is all but imminent in my near future, a three thousand mile road trip is not likely to be (unless Stu and I decide to keep our car in which case we might have to drive it across the country, in which case, I'll suck it up and figure out a way to make my desire to see the Mall of America and Mount Rushmore outweigh my desire to be on the East coast in six hours rather than six weeks).

However, as long as Monday nights involve Nathan Fillion in a vehicle and Rev Run picking up Diggy in a Rolls Royce Phantom, my vicarious affair with cars will continue.

It's fair to say that I'm now committed to Drive. I wasn't gonna blog about it and I'm still not gonna recap the plot (FOX does that quite nicely), but I'm totally enjoying it, even though it is trashy as all get out. Seriously, it's like some ridiculous D-list show. The scripts are laughable, as is the acting (but not Nathan, bien sur), and the actors are weirdly attractive, but yet, just not that great looking (but again, not Nathan, of course). Like you know if this show was on NBC instead of FOX, the hot lead girl would look a little like more like Evangeline Lily and less like someone who's still living in a studio in Los Angeles just praying that a mid-season replacement show on FOX is going to catapult her to the next level. And the teenage girl would actually be Lindsay Lohan (if you could keep her off the...Red Bull) and not some adolescent who looks frustratingly similar to LaLohan when she was still cruising Long Island. Of course, Nathan Fillion is A-list hot to moi, but I sense that he's getting pigeon-holed in these cultish shows and may have a hard time driving his way out (see how I said Drive? I'm workin' the theme, people).

But crappy dialogue and D-listers aside, Drive has something for everyone and is fun for the whole family, unless, of course, one of your family members has been kidnapped, has a terminal disease, has gone AWOL, has broken parole, or happens to have heard the voice of god before dying in a car crash. I normally despise a *the mysteries go deeper and the secrets unfold every week* shows because they usually bore me to tears by episode three, but either my love of Nathan Fillion, or my love of cars is keeping me on the road with this one (did you catch that? on the road? aw yeah.).

Also on the road this evening was my beloved Rev Run. No secret, illegal, cross-country road race on Run's House. Rev doesn't get much further than Paramus, New Jersey to buy a gorilla suit with which to embarrass Diggy, who is embarrassed that his father keeps meeting the school bus in his Phantom Jaguar. Diggy learns the valuable lesson that one should not be embarrassed by where he has come from and Run learns that a gorilla suit might not have been the best way to teach Diggy that lesson. I learned that I still want Rev Run to adopt me. If nothing else, I just want him to give me that look that he gave Russy when he asked Russy why he thought he would get any mail. Russy replied, "Because I'm a special person." If my dad had been able to give me a look of disdain with as much sarcasm as Rev gave Russy, my life would probably be very different right now.

And most likely, I'd probably drive a Saab Turbo 900 convertible instead of a 1996 Subaru wagon.

What Was I Thinking?!

You might have noticed that I'm not a morning person. Most of my posts go up late at night, far too late, actually, and perhaps the lack of sleep is beginning to take its toll.

This morning, I woke up in a panic. Yes, I was shocked that my alarm was demanding that I wake up because it seemed like such a short time had passed since I had set the damn thing and crawled into bed after last night's post, but more than that, I was panicked by my sudden memory that FOX's Drive, starring one Nathan Fillion, was to premiere at any moment. Fearful that it might be tonight or tomorrow and conflict with The Search for the Next Doll (which would probably be a blessing) or Top Model, I bolted out of bed to check the schedule. With great relief I saw that Drive is premiering on Sunday, which is perfect. A free TV night. Sure I'll be up too late writing, but what else is new?

But, what really worried me and clearly illustrated that I've lost my mind due to sleep deprivation, is that my morning Drive panic reminded me that when I mentioned my "list" a few posts ago, I forgot to put Nathan Fillion on it! I have no idea how this happened so I am here to correct the situation and make amends.

At this point, until another Bourne movie comes out, I'm going to have to bump Matt Damon. I do heart him so, but with Leo's new found manliness and vulnerability in The Departed, well, I just can't bear to part with him. So move over Matt, wonderfully understated actor that you are, Nathan's back!

I feel much better now.

From Rags to Riches, Bel Air to Brooklyn, en Route to Miami

The Malloys go from traveling bandits to gated-community residents in The Riches.

This post is voyage of sorts—a journey of the mind and the soul and of the remote control. It is not, however, a journey of the body, unless you consider the flight of my ass cheeks from one side of the couch to the other, possibly the result of early onset rheumatoid arthritis in my hip joints.

The journey began at 10PM last night when I sat down to watch the much anticipated premiere of The Riches. I was in a rather chipper mood, despite my STILL being sick and having spent my third day in a row in the apartment. I was still hacking green things out of what felt like my left lung, but I was looking forward to a new television show, a good night’s sleep, and at very least, a day where I might make contact with the outside world.

Sadly, as of 1:25PM the following day, none of the above has yet to occur. Firstly, I did not enjoy The Riches and the only reason I can come up with is that I’m just not much for the crime genre. I can’t get into any of the Crime Scene Investigation Shows, Missing People Shows, or Sexy Coroners Solving Crime Shows (except for Quincy M.E. cuz that show was awesome, way better than Diagnosis Murder because as much as I adore Dick Van Dyke, can you really top Jack Klugman when it comes to sexy, surly crime solving?). It seems the only crime related shows I’ve had brief fixations with are Homicide and Law and Order, which if left to Dostoevsky, would imply that I was far more interested in punishment than crime.

So while, I thought The Riches was an excellent production with a compelling script and great performances, I didn’t take to it. But of course, I wanted to write about it. But I just couldn’t figure out what to write. At 11PM, I took some cough suppressant, thought I’d hit the hay, sleep on it, and come up with something on my way to work in the morning. Unfortunately, I never slept. I believe there must have been some stimulants in that cough suppressant that touted “non-drowsy” as a selling point. Usually I steer clear of such things with my heightened sensitivity to all things caffeine-like, but I had taken it mid-day and napped rather nicely. Although, now that I think of it, that was probably due to a drug combination issue, Nyquil having remained in my system from the night before. So, despite exhaustion, sleep was no where to be found and I lay on our guest room futon from midnight to 5AM, cough fully suppressed, thoughts racing and churning, worrying about what to write about The Riches.

Come 5AM, I finally felt sufficiently sleepy enough to join Stu in our bed. Needless to say, the moment I placed my head upon my pillow, the itch in my chest began, the mucus started moving, and all coughing hell broke loose. I popped out of bed, Stu asking me if I was okay. I burst into tears.

I relegated myself back to the guest room futon, sitting at its edge, refusing to lie back down on that brick of a mattress, coughing, crying, and cursing simultaneously. I sent Stu back to sleep and did the only logical thing. I went downstairs to watch TV.


After viewing several minutes of a few of my favorite infomercials (The Magic Bullet, Hip Hop Abs, and Proactiv Solution), I settled in on, yes folks, a very special episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I know the joke is to say that every episode of The Fresh Prince is a special one, but this one really was. It was the one in which Will, exhausted by the demands of school, work, sports, and romance, is offered some speed by a classmate. Unwilling to take the drugs himself, he puts the bottle in his locker. During the senior prom, an unsuspecting Carlton ingests the pills, believing them to be Vitamin E tablets that will reduce the size of a rather sizeable pimple. A bout of unconsciousness and stomach pumping ensues and we all learn a very valuable lesson about the dangers of drugs (and of doing the Running Man at high speed to I Will Always Love You).

While everyone loves The Fresh Prince, special episode or not, it is particularly special to me because when I first moved to Seattle in 1995 with my dear friend L, and we got our first apartment together in our new city of residence, we made dinner together every night and sat down to watch a 7PM rerun of The Fresh Prince. We also watched a lot of other TV and we didn’t realize how that would be frowned upon in the holier-than-thou-we-don’t-own-televisions Northwest. We were so berated for our TV viewing habits that we started telling everyone we were a Nielson family, forced to watch hours of TV out of civic duty. Imagine my thrill when one day I actually was asked to be a Nielsen watcher and received $1 for filling out that weekly journal. Don’t ever say that dreams don’t come true.


Next up at 6AM, The Cosby Show! Say what you will about Bill, the man will always be a comedic idol and aside from my own love of his stand-up, I will always have fond memories of watching The Cosby Show with my father. My dad thought this show was genius—and it was, for a time—and would actually allow me to watch it with him, despite its time slot of Thursday nights at 8PM, clearly a TV-on-a-school-night violation. Unfortunately what I caught at 6AM this morning was one of the episodes from that final season in which Rudy is too old to be the cute one so she’s been replaced by Raven Symone. In this episode, Denise throws a birthday party for the ridiculously adorable Olivia. She has several friends come to the Huxtable residence and you can tell it’s that phase in which Bill Cosby has become completely enamored of any child’s innate comedic abilities. Sure, a five-year-old in a bow tie singing Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger is funny, but it’s contrived and obvious. But with Bill in the room, it doesn’t matter cuz that man’s reaction to anything is always hilarious. It was one of the worst episodes I’d ever seen and I hated that Bill had that Kids Say the Darndest Things show, but I laughed my ass off at his every facial expression anyway.


And, rounding out my wee hours of the morning viewing--you know I love it--back to back episodes of The Golden Girls on Lifetime! You know what? This show is still funny. But this morning I realized why I love it so much. Yes, I love Dorothy’s caustic wit, Rose’s heartwarming stupidity, Blanche’s insatiable lust, and Sophia’s kicky wisdom. But most of all, I love their cake. These women are old and care not about their midsections and I love them for that. They eat cake in every episode, any time, night or day. In the first episode, they had cake at midnight. In the second episode, they ate what looked like the last episode’s remaining cheesecake at noon. Later that same day, they had a brand new cake for a dinner party, and you know the leftovers were coming out for a late night kitchen conversation. Sigh. It’s never too early or too late for cake with your best girlfriends.

By the time the cake revelation occurred, it was just about 7AM and I was finally getting sleepy again and the lung hacking seemed to have subsided. I switched over the Today Show, thinking I’d get some shut eye and some news at the same time.

You know it’s a sad day when you’re falling asleep to the Today Show rather than waking up to it and you’ve already watched two hours of television. I opened my eyes at 8:30AM and called my boss to let her know I was couch-bound for another day.

Changing Demographics: Happy Birthday to Me

If you’ve noted this blog’s tagline and acknowledged the reference to Carol in my profile, it will come as no surprise when I admit to being a Brady Bunch fanatic (click here to read about my Brady obsession and my chance encounter with Florence Henderson). When my passion for watching Brady Bunch reruns whenever humanly possible began, I was about the same age as Cindy in the earliest episodes and it seemed to me that there was not only no one cooler than Greg and Marcia Brady, but no one older. Sure, Carol and Mike were far advanced in their years, but they were parents. I couldn’t relate to them at all. But Marcia and Greg, at sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, they were something to which I could aspire. It seemed like it would take a lifetime to get there, but I knew I could and would be as old as they were. Someday, I promised myself, I would be just like them: private room in the attic, cheerleading captain, dates with football players (even though my school had no football team) and all.


When I was a bit older and settled into the routine of secret Mary Tyler Moore Show episodes after school, I realized that as far as idolatry was concerned, Greg and Marcia would only take me through late adolescence. That was still a long way off and I could still barely imagine making it to eighteen, but I knew there was more. When my age hit the double-digits, I knew I wanted something other than groovy prom dates in my future. I knew I wanted a career. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but I do remember my make-believe games involved rushing around the house with folders rather than baby dolls in my arms, imagining I was routing very important information between very high level offices. With her typing, phone answering, and rushing to and from Mr. Grant’s office, Mary Richards seemed to have exactly what I thought I would want in my future as an independent woman. She worked in television as a glorified secretary under the guise of an associate producer and she got to hang out with some really cool guys (yes, I refer here to Lou, Murray, and Ted). Thus, my new hero was selected.

More than a decade later, when I had my first job after graduating from college and my own apartment to go with it, I walked home after work every evening feeling just like my childhood idol. It felt like I was gonna make it after all!

Flipping through the channels one weekend afternoon in my beloved studio, I came upon a Brady Bunch rerun. Needless to say, channel flipping ended immediately as I’ve never bypassed a Brady episode in my life. At the time, I was about twenty-four and I watched the show not only with nostalgia but also with amazement. It suddenly dawned on me that I was six years older than Greg Brady at his oldest. I had thought that for sure, the minute I had turned eighteen, I would have made a mental note of having finally achieved the milestone which I had always been waiting so long for. But no, I had let the moment pass me by and I had surpassed the eldest Brady without realizing it at all. Oddly though, Greg and Marcia still seemed older than I was, stuck in their own syndicated time zone so that whenever I saw them, I was six years old no matter what my true chronological age. The realization that so many years had gone by was slightly shocking, but no matter, I thought. I’d still never be as old as Mary Richards, my true working-woman hero.


At twenty-five, I became an avid Friends watcher. Not only did Monica Geller and I share extreme Type A personality traits, but I was exactly her age and Monica, Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Phoebe, and Joey’s trials and tribulations mirrored my and all of my friends' issues: constant angst regarding relationships, careers, parents, relationships…The Friends were living our lives, only with better dialog. It was nice to see my own age depicted up there on the small screen rather than constantly imagining what I would one day become. The Friends seemed to be exactly what I already was.




Eventually, twenty eight rolled around. I had been waiting to be twenty-eight for what felt like eons. Twenty-eight was the age, I had one day decided, that some of my favorite kick ass heroines, Kelly Garrett of Charlie’s Angels and Diana Prince of Wonder Woman, surely were at the height of my adoration for them back in the day. I had yet to kick anyone’s ass since I was neither private detective nor super hero, but I had a job that I adored and I was cohabitating with a man whom I adored and who proposed to me that year, so things felt on track. It felt okay that at twenty-eight I was what I once thought of as pretty darn old, cuz, well, so far, so good.

Eventually thirty came and went and I embraced my early thirties wholeheartedly, determining that thirty-something was better than twenty-something any day. And that was true on most days.

Until this one day.

A familiar scenario: me on my ass in front of the television, thumb mindlessly depressing the remote control. I stumbled upon a Mary Tyler Moore Show rerun. Ahhhh. I thought about my age, perhaps thirty-two or thirty-three at this point. I was positive that the one character’s age I would never surpass was Mary Richards’. So mature, so wise, so with it—there was no way I could ever be at her level.

The episode I watched that day involved Mary’s birthday and the revelation that she had moved into another television research demographic. She burst into tears when she realized she no longer belonged in the eighteen to twenty-four year-old bracket. She had just turned twenty-five.

EXCUSE ME?

The remote fell to the floor with the thwack of plastic hitting hard wood. I blinked several times. I looked around for someone to confirm the information I had just gleaned or at least to come to my medical rescue once I fell into an epileptic seizure, the result of the major shock and trauma that had just befallen me.

TWENTY FIVE?

Mary Richards, associate producer at WJM-TV was TWENTY-FIVE? Sure, it was one of the earlier episodes, but the show was only on for seven years which means at the very end of it she was still only THIRTY-TWO. My entire world instantly shattered as I realized that I had surpassed the age of the Mary Richards in that episode ALMOST TEN YEARS AGO.


Five years have since passed and I have come to terms with many things about my age. This weekend I turn thirty-seven and I have a tendency to walk around telling people that I’m pushing forty. I find this ridiculously hard to believe. I find myself wishing I’d paid closer attention when my mother watched Thirtysomething in the 1980s. Surely there were some valuable lessons I had missed that would be helpful as I screech towards a new decade. But to this day, whatever Hope, Nancy, Melissa, Gary, Elliot, and Michael went through still seems impossibly adult: adultery, divorce, illness, mid-career transitions, child bearing and rearing. But now, I stop and realize: I have friends who have gotten divorced, who have dealt with major health issues, who have ended fifteen-year career trajectories, who have children, multiple children...

So now, who is there left to look up to? Whose age can I use to comfort myself knowing that their issues are still decades in the future, nowhere near my own concerns? Who can I be not as old as…yet?


Thank you for being a friend…and for being a lot older than thirty-seven!

How I’m Gonna “Carry On” and “Make it Work”

You’re probably expecting me to launch into a commentary on the genius of Tim Gunn right about now, hence your confusion over my selected image of Bill Murray and Carol Kane. Well, there will be no Tim Gunn discussion this evening (oh, but wait until he comes to Seattle in April on his book tour—there will be discussion indeed!). No, tonight is about concept, about procedure, and about the importance of television. And it is, by way of reference, a little bit about Scrooged, the world’s most underrated Christmas movie EVER.

Just shy of its two week birthday, TV ON A SCHOOL NIGHT is in its nascent stages, finding its way into the world, post by post, baby step by baby step (for those of you who are really with me on the Bill Murray thing). Despite not having written since last week’s Top Model episode, I have absorbed plenty of television, but a question has been plaguing me: how to broach it all? How to convey that I do watch TV every single day, come hell or high water, even if what I’m watching isn’t current or new? I’ve been in a quandary, wondering exactly what approach to take with this blog. Do I commit myself to every episode of Dancing with the Stars merely because it’s premiering next week (which would cause husband Stu no small amount of pain, misery, heartache, and anguish)? Or, as I’ve been thinking for the past couple of hours since Stu and I had a tiff regarding my possibly watching hours heaped on top of hours of reality programming merely to have material for witty commentary, do I continue my TV watching life as I always have: a Friends rerun here, an E! True Hollywood Story there, here an Oprah, there a Firefly, everywhere a Project Runway.

Here’s where we come to the Scrooged part. Like Bill Murray’s Frank Cross, sad as it may seem to others although bringing nothing but great joy to me, if I think back, many of my favorite memories are founded in reminiscences of television shows: entire chunks of my life gauged by what series I watched religiously, the progression of my life based on what characters I thought I most wanted to be like. Unlike Frank Cross, I need no ghosts to smack me around, tickle me silly, or drive me recklessly through my past to show me how wonderful the life I haven’t paid attention to is and how much I’ve missed. I haven’t missed a single beat. But, every beat has a TV series, movie of the week, breaking news brief, or special Sunday night presentation to go along with it.

I realized the magnitude of this the other day when I was pondering television’s role in my life. This is where I bring the room down for a moment: my father passed away when I was twenty-two and while now, fourteen years later, much of my memory of the days surrounding his death are a bit blurry, one thing is not. On the day of his funeral, devastated as I was (and make no mistake, I was devastated) I still thought to myself that it was a Wednesday and I wished that everyone would leave our house in time for me to watch Beverly Hills 90210. When no one had left by 8pm, Eastern Standard Time, I hid myself away in my parents’ bedroom to spend some time with the Walshes. Was I so shallow and callous and unfeeling that television was more important than mourning my father’s death? No, but my need for it ran deeper than anything else I was feeling by the end of that day. I didn’t want to be with anyone but Brandon, Brenda, Kelly, Dylan, Donna and David (I’d mention Andrea, but did anyone really want to be with her?). Sometimes watching television feels to me like the relief a cutter must feel when the blade finally penetrates the skin. There’s a rush of relief, a calm that only certain things can bring. For some, it's a knife, or heroin, or a pint of Ben & Jerry’s (yeah, that one’s pretty good too).

For me, it’s TV. I need it every day. I don’t care if it’s a morning talk show; I don’t care if it’s a drama on a DVD that just arrived from Netflix; I don’t care if it’s a ten day old sitcom episode in danger of being deleted by TIVO; I don't care if it's a show I'm watching cuz I can't find anything else to watch. I have to watch something every day and I have to watch television all week long and what I’m trying to say here is that I don’t necessarily watch the same thing on the same day at the same time. It’s a bit random, and until I decide that doesn’t work, that’s how this blog will work. I’m gonna watch something every day, and I’m gonna write about it almost every day, cuz as my sister asked recently after she read the last of my rather lengthy posts, “don’t you have a day job?” Yeah, I do, and I’m gonna attempt not to get fired from it.

But I’m also gonna try to write about as much television as possible.

Save Studio 60! I just don’t think The Black Donnellys are up to the job.

Watching The West Wing via Netflix aside, I haven’t been hooked on an NBC drama since the heyday of ER, the years before the show started wearing its emotional manipulation on its sleeve, its bloodied hands reaching out from the television set, not merely to tug on my heart strings, but to wrench them violently out from behind my lungs and stretch them taught across my living room. And with the sitcom so near death that it needs to be rushed to Chicago General’s emergency room and intubated, I’ve been waiting for something exciting and enthralling to come along.

And then along came Studio 60. I had my concerns at the beginning, despite my great love of comedy and the likelihood of my loving a show about producing a comedy show. The first three episodes seemed to be nothing more than a forum for Aaron Sorkin’s ongoing crisis of faith and conflict with the religious right, no matter how great it was to see Matthew Perry back on the air, and no matter how in love with Bradley Whitford I had fallen (the result of said West Wing watching). I gave up after three episodes but returned spontaneously one night to find Danny professing his undying love for pregnant Jordan, Matt spontaneously kissing Harriet in between live sketches, and Aaron Sorkin’s trademark dialogue thriving in every scene. So, of course, now that I’m totally addicted, the folks at NBC are about to yank the needle from my arm. Officially, NBC is claiming indefinite hiatus, but that cat my parents told me was “going back to the pet store for a little while” has yet to return.

But, as devastated as I am by the likely loss, since I’m on some sort of post-Departed-Oscar-win high, I thought I’d give The Black Donnellys’ Irish mob tale a try and see what the execs in programming deemed a suitable and potentially more profitable replacement.

Using the Donnellys childhood pal Joey Ice Cream as a narrator being questioned by the NYPD about the whereabouts of some missing bodies, the pilot tells of the four Irish brothers and their progression from petty dessert theft to truck stealing and ultimately murder and Mob-dom. Jimmy is the eldest sibling who cannot recover from two events from his youth: a reckless driver shattering his leg and several years later, inadvertently leading Italian gangsters to beat his father to death. Kevin is the hapless one who spends his days gambling but has never, ever won a bet in his life. Tommy is the earnest one, the only brother making his way through college. Unlike his brothers, Tommy seems to have never done anything wrong in his life. Sean is the youngest and allegedly irresistible to any woman who comes within a mile of him. And then there’s Jenny Reilley, the girl next door who grew up with the boys and has a soft spot for Tommy who has been crushing on her for years. Unfortunately, she believes herself to be a married woman, unaware that her husband has been dumped in a dumpster, which no one has the heart to break to her.

Highly stylized with edgy edits, freeze frames, rewinds, fast forwards and Joey Ice Cream’s fast talking story telling, the first episode lays the show’s foundations, illustrating that the brothers will do anything for one another and that Tommy will do anything for Jimmy. Turns out, Tommy was the reckless driver who ran over Jimmy’s leg. Tommy never stole a car or anything else again and swore he would never let anything bad happen to Jimmy (Based on Jimmy’s existence thus far, Tommy’s not doing such a great job.). In Joey’s confession to the police, he recounts Tommy’s most recent effort to save Jimmy’s life when it was in jeopardy as a result of Kevin’s owing a bookie upwards of $5K. Tommy manages not only to thwart Jimmy’s ass kicking, but, with Kevin’s help, kill a principal Italian mobster along with all of his henchman, rendering Tommy the newest leader of the pack.

Oh, the humanity and irony of it all. The always-upstanding Tommy must now enter a life of organized crime. Lob off one head, and another one will always take its place. Thus, the rest of the season will follow as the boys defend their territory and each other in probably every episode.

Will I tune in for such affairs of the brethren? I might if the characters weren’t entirely one dimensional: Jimmy: chip-on-his-shoulder screw up (Tommy told him to jump off a bridge if he was in that much pain.), Kevin: loser (As of the pilot, this character is so poorly developed that I can’t even come up with an entertaining parenthetical for him), Tommy: saint turned sinner (But still so damn sincere that you can’t help but wish him well in his new mob-leader endeavors), Sean: cute-as-a-puppy-dog ladies man (I actually don’t find him cute at all but the ladies are supposed to adore him. Although, right now he’s in the hospital after getting the crap kicked out of him so he might be off the market for a while.). I also might tune in if the story lines weren’t riddled with contrivances: Of course virtuous Tommy was the driver of the stolen car that shattered Jimmy’s leg and ultimately his entire life! Of course there’s a cop who’s always looking out for the boys! Of course Jenny has been pining away for Tommy after years of being one of the boys, and of course Tommy harbors feelings for the tomboy turned hottie!

And I might tune in if the premise of the show was at all plausible (i.e. it’s hard to watch The Hand that Rocks the Cradle knowing the entire situation could have been avoided if Annabella Sciorra hadn’t hired Rebecca DeMornay off the street without checking references). Can we really believe that Tommy and Kevin blindsided several thugs on their home turf and then took down the feared Italian mobster who’s been running the hood from the same restaurant booth for decades? And now the Donnellys are going to run the business?

Frankly, I don’t think they’re up to it. Nor are they up for saving NBC’s Monday night 10pm time slight.

SAVE STUDIO 60!!!

Executive Decision

Due to a harrowing TIVO glitch—harrowing not because the glitch was irreparable or irreversible, but because any disruption in the time/space/TIVO continuum causes the earth to feel like it’s tilting and pitching wildly out of control and I’m quite sure I’ll slide off of its surface into a vast void of nothingness where surely there’s no good television to be found—Spencer and I just finished watching this week’s episode of 30 Rock. All I can say is thank god for NBC’s new marketing tools which include full episodes of its shows on-line.

And thank god for this episode’s being dead-on-the-money hysterical. I might have to run around the apartment yelling “There’ll be snacks!!” for the rest of the weekend (courtesy of one of Rachel Dratch’s brilliant bit cameos). But in light of my tendency for falling in love with well written jokes (“Yo, where’s Fat Balls at?” “He’s at the hotel management program at Cornell.” “Way to go, Fat Balls! That’s a good program.”) or super silly musical arrangements (i.e. a well harmonized Tomorrow), I have decided not to blog about sitcoms, despite their being my most beloved form of comedy.

Remember the SNL sketch, “The Chris Farley Show” during which Chris Farley would interview celebrities and it usually went as follows?

Paul McCartney: Well, it's great to be here.

Chris Farley: [ uncomfortable ] You.. you.. you remember when you were with The Beatles?

Paul McCartney: Yeah, sure.

Chris Farley: That was awesome!

I think that’s pretty much how it would go down should I endeavor to blog about sitcoms. It’s not like there are exasperating contestants to critique, complicated plots to recount, or maddening new items to dissect (or ridiculously bad interviews conducted by Ann Curry about whom I rant on a fairly regular basis to due the inconceivable fact that there are people at The Today Show and NBC who continue to let her engage in any sort of conversation with other people.). There are, one hopes, twenty-three minutes worth of jokes and enough plot and character to keep you watching. But even in the heyday of Ross and Rachel’s will they/won’t they hoopla, there wouldn’t have been enough to necessitate commentary and my retelling my favorite punch lines—Remember “Ms. Chanandler Bong?” That was awesome!—would probably grow tiresome.

So therefore, my royal decree is thusly:

TV ON A SCHOOL NIGHT will not post regularly on sitcoms unless there is something particularly supercalifragilisticexpialidocious on which to pontificate.

And yes a TV blog's second post has also referenced a movie. And yes, it’s another Julie Andrews movie. I can’t help it! I love the woman! I love when she plays a nanny! I love when she plays a governess! And Mary Poppins is also on television every damn year so it totally counts as a TV reference. The hills ARE alive with the sound of music and a spoonful of sugar really DOES help the medicine go down.

And on that note (if it were a note Julie Andrews were singing, it would be a really, really high one)…

Executive decision made!

Let's Start at the Very Beginning. A Very Good Place to Start.

The Sound of Music is on television at least once a year so no sassy comments about a TV blog's first post referencing a movie. When was the last time you saw Julie Andrews twirl around on a mountain top meadow, arms wide open to the world, on the big screen? And the last time you saw her singing and spinning on an NBC Sunday night special presentation?

Mm Hmm. Just as I suspected.

“When you read you begin with ABC, when you sing you begin with Do Re Mi,” and when you start a blog you begin with why you started it at all. I’m pretty sure the fates or whoever is in charge of that laws-of-attraction craze Oprah just started has put me up to this.

Here’s how the story goes:

In October of ’05, I started America’s Next Top Novel so I could blog about the glorious train wreck that is America’s Next Top Model while balancing it with the loftier ambition of numerous book reviews. Eventually, however, I was slowed down by how slowly I read (despite a fifteen year career in book publishing). I gave it up, deciding that I should probably write my own book instead of writing about everyone else’s (what with that creative writing degree and all). But, like the fourteen other novels I’d started, that didn’t go so well, likely due to the fact that I was spending most of my time with my ass on the couch, TIVO remote in hand. I gave up Top Novel in May of ’06 and the Luddite that sometimes lurks deep within breathed a sigh of relief.

Until last week.

Last week, thanks to corporate whoring—oh wait, I must mean corporate cross-promoting—my beloved Mychael Knight of Project Runway fame appeared at the Starbucks two blocks from my apartment to promote his My Starbucks t-shirt campaign, which seems to be about Starbucks promoting how they can customize drinks for customers which is what they’ve always done since the first time someone ordered a split shot brevé mocha, so who knows why they’re acting like this is some fancy new PR opportunity, but whatever. There was my Mychael at my Starbucks (or you know, the one closest to my home, which is slightly closer than the one that’s three blocks away). I left work to attend his mid-day engagement and those of my local Runway-watching posse who couldn’t join me waited eagerly for a report (Fun fact: Seattle has the highest population of Project Runway watchers in the country. Don’t ask me why though. Fleece is for warmth, not fashion, people!). In my former Top Novel style, I wrote up an email play-by-play with a link to a couple of photos and a video of me standing with Mychael (the Luddite lives—when I got to the autographing line I accidentally had my camera set to video). I hit send and sighed heavily. Suddenly, I missed blogging. In some sort of all-planets-aligned moment, several of my peeps wrote back saying that they missed my blog. Sigh.

I’d been walking around with blogging on the brain for days when yesterday, a friend wrote me about a call for writers she saw on The Superficial. Why not? I weeded through the Top Novel archives, submitted the required three sample posts, and started feverishly refreshing my Gmail account cuz they were undoubtedly going to be contacting me upon immediate receipt of my application.

Nine hours and several hundred Gmail log-ons later, I started this thing.

After all, America’s Next Top Model’s new cycle starts next week with Project Runway following in April, and I know So You Think You Can Dance has got to be right around the corner. And don’t even get me started on how excited I am that there’s a second season of Work Out and then there’s that new show Drive, with Nathan Fillion, and my new found obsession with Studio 60…

“When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything!!”