Some things i watched this week

There's a lot of great and some terrible TV swirling around out there this week. And I've been watching all of it.

Friday Night Lights

One of the best episodes ever. Seriously. There is still not a single show, past or present, that I would rather write for. For which I would rather write. Whatevs. Anyway, this week's episode just tore my heart out. I had tears streaming for the last half-hour, so much great stuff going on. I still want to marry the coach, even though I totally love Tammy as well.

After that unbelievably wonderful episode, I couldn't stop myself from watching the "Next Week On FNL" spoilers. Good. Effing. God. They're bringing back Jason Street? And doing a Julie tatoo storyline? Please, spare us. My two least favorite characters doing boring things unrelated to football or the coach or anything we care about as an audience. It will be a miracle if they can pull it off. But then, FNL is a pretty miraculous show, so we'll see.

Trust Me

I kinda love Eric McCormack, maybe as a human being, rather than an actor. Not that I know him or anything, but he just feels like he'd be an awesome uncle or something. And Thomas Cavanagh has a certain scampy charm, so I figured I'd give Trust Me a look, even though I don't want to see another workplace drama ever ever ever. The pilot episode was pretty decent. Enough that I'll watch the next ep anyway. 

I'm intrigued with the set-up (odd couple best friends become boss and employee) and I even liked the one female character, who is just like so many writers I know. (One female, in the whole office though? I know the ad world is sexist, but it's not that sexist, is it? Tangent. I have a black male friend who is an ad copywriter. He says when he steps into agencies for the first time, everyone just gapes, like they don't understand why he's not out playing basketball or something.) So yeah, I'll be watching another episode or two. But TNT has seriously got to do something about their online video player. It's pants.

Leverage

I had 10 unwatched episodes of Leverage on my DVR. I was always intrigued, but a heist show? I mean, that's even worse than a workplace drama. I find whenever I'm watching anything remotely procedural, I just kind of tune out when the characters start talking about the evidence, or the symptoms, or the crime, or whatever. When they get back into personal stuff, I snap back to attention. And that's the problem with the Leverage pilot, it's all heist, no personality. OK, not 100% true, but true enough that I tuned out a good 80% of the time. I now have 9 unwatched episodes on my DVR, and I'm not sure if that will ever turn into 8.

Battlestar Galactica

Everyone loooved the Battlestar before last, but I thought this week's was better. But that's like saying, this Red Velvet cupcake is better than that Double Chocolate. I mean, who cares which one is better? I want to eat them both.

Wife Swap and Supernanny

Yeah, I know it's traitorous to watch reality TV. And I never ever do. But Friday night there was something about these two shows the glued me to the TV, hard. I was just stuck. On Wife Swap there were these two poor little kids who were so obviously just-- stupid-- there's no other way to say it. They were several stops short of Dagenham (as Will Self would say, obliquely, unless you've lived in London) and their parents were home-schooling them. Except they weren't really. They were just letting the kids take care of their own education. They could barely write. They could barely speak a full sentence. It was awful. I couldn't look away. 

And then on Supernanny, the nanny had to work with a family of 10 kids and an alcoholic dad, who was also clearly gay, but no one mentioned that. The clueless mother still wanted two more children, even though everyone around her was, like, nooooooo! Poor Supernanny just wanted to give her a good slap, but I guess that would have been unprofessional. Anyway, it's good every once in a while to watch these shows and remember that real life is so totally effed up, nothing I could write could be half as interesting.

Dollhouse

Of course, I have not been watching Dollhouse, but I've been reading the interviews and watching the commercials and waiting and waiting. I'm more excited than when Studio 60 was about to air. And we all know how that turned out...