“Skating with the Stars”

Holy crap! Did anyone else watch this televised insanity last night? Man, if my Mother-in-Law hadn’t strong-armed us into watching part one of the season finale of “Dancing with the Stars” — a show neither Christine or I have ever watched willingly — we would probably have missed it entirely.

But, thanks to Marge, we totally watched the premiere episode of “Skating with the Stars” and, Lord in heaven, I want my hour back.

Seriously, that shit was so crazy! No offense to the sexiest damn replicant in the “Blade Runner” universe, but, when Sean Young is your biggest name star, you know you don’t have any stars. Yikes! And the still-sexy Miss Young tried her damndest, but, wow, bitch could not skate to save her life!

Even Olympic Gold Medalist Jonny Mosely sucked. Sure, he won his gold for skiing, but, still, you’d think he’d have some basic skating skills. Sadly, he didn’t.

The rest of the nobody’s…ahem…”stars”, were fine-to-decent skaters — except for reality show super-bitch Bethenny Frankel, who kinda rocked! — but the highlight of the night was when middle judge and resident super freak, Johnny Weir, inexplicably skated for the crowd.

It was so weird, they just came back from the break and announced that now, Johnny Weir would be skating. Huh? What about the next couple? And how did Johnny change into that strange outfit and frost his tips red so quickly? It was very confusing, amigos.

And the song the Weird One skated to? Wait for it…Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”. Ha! Perfection! Instantly, the show went from plain-old bad TV to totally-surreal Mexican variety show. So awesomely bad! Wow…it’s almost enough to make me wanna watch next week. Almost…

Anybody else watch this craziness? If so, what’d you think?

Farewell to “Lost”

I know much has been written about the recent series finale of “Lost”, so, I won’t bore you yet another analysis of what they got right and less right at the end. But I will tell you that we freaking loved every crazy minute of that finale.

Yes, there are still a couple of unanswered questions — If women couldn’t have babies on the island, why were Ethan and Aaron both born there? What was Widmore’s real end game and how did he find the island again? And where the hell was Walt, who was so central in seasons past, in all this craziness? — but overall, we thought the show ended perfectly.

And as far as the much-maligned “flash-sideways” go, we thought they were some of the coolest moments of the entire series. Seeing Locke finally experience a true and lasting love with Helen, watching Jack be the loving father he never had to his son, David, that shit was beautiful.

But the real kicker was seeing Ben do the right thing and selflessly help his “daughter” Alex this time around. OMG, the post-dinner scene with him and Rousseau in the second-to-last episode just about killed me. I was sobbing!

Christine and I also wept like babies — poor Greta looked so confused! — when Sun and Jin and Sawyer and Juliet were reunited in the finale. That beautiful music and those series-encompassing flashes were just…wow…I’m getting weepy again just thinking about it.

I’ll probably be nerding out over the finer points of the show for years, so for now, let me just say a huge “Lostie” thank you to everyone involved with bringing this trippy, genre-bending series into our lives.

You guys rocked our world for six amazing seasons, so, thanks for the memories, amigos…and, as our Dharma Initiative friends would say, namaste!

2009 Fall TV Season Report Card

Seeing as the Fall TV season has been up and running for a couple of weeks now, thought we’d finally weigh in on the crop of new shows. The good news is that, so far, most of the shows we’ve watched have been good. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time we added this many new shows to our Tivo Season Pass!

And though some of the most heavily-promoted new shows kinda sucked (I’m talking to you, “Cougar Town”) some of them are actually totally deserving of the hype (“The Vampire Diaries”, “The Good Wife”, “Modern Family”, etc.). But rather than bore you with long, detailed descriptions of the shows in question, we felt an annotated report card would be much more to the point.

So, without further ado, I give you our first annual Fall TV Season report card…enjoy!

Letter Grade: A+

“The Vampire Diaries” (The CW) – Long-lost loves, family secrets, dark, brooding vampires in high school…what’s not to love here? “Twilight” be damned, this show is the best of the crop so far…and the fact that it stars mi “The American Mall” amiga, Nina Dobrev, certainly doesn’t hurt. If you haven’t already, you must Tivo this show!

“Modern Family” (ABC) – This show has only aired twice and we laughed our asses off and cried during both episodes. A really sweet, heartfelt and hilarious look at one crazy extended family. Awesome!

“Glee” (FOX) – Best new show that started airing last season. It’s like co-creator Ryan Murphy threw his old WB show “Popular” in a giant pot, boiled away the fat and cheese and created something truly magical. “Glee” is a pleasure to watch from start to finish.

“The Good Wife” (CBS) – This show looked like such a snooze when it was announced, but it is so much more than meets the eye. The cast is superb, particularly Julianna Margulies’ mouthy sidekick, Archie Panjabi, who truly electrifies every scene she’s in. I’m not kidding, these gals have onscreen chemistry to burn. And seeing Josh Charles, Chris Noth and Christine Baranski back on a weekly series is never a bad thing either.

Letter Grade: A

“Melrose Place” (The CW) – Already a hundred times better than the original series, and a million times better than the hideously-lame “90210” remake that debuted last year, this “Melrose” is juicy, campy, sexy and best of all, crazy fun to watch. And unlike the new “90210”, the classic characters actually have a story and a reason to be there when they show up. Ooo, and speaking of, Heather Locklear is checking back in soon…so, bring on the awesomeness!

“Mercy” (NBC) – Didn’t expect this show to be good at all, but caught a few minutes of it in passing and am now totally hooked. Quirky characters that don’t annoy, zippy writing and a first-rate cast in a medical show about nurses? Wow, almost makes me forget that “ER” was canceled…

Letter Grade: B

“Accidentally On Purpose” (CBS) – I normally loathe Jenna Elfman, but it seems that I’ll watch anything to do with babies and pregnancy these days, so, I Tivoed the show. And, you know what? It’s not nearly as bad as it looks. I won’t Tivo it again, but you could find much worse ways to pass a half hour.

“The City” (MTV) – I know this show — a spin-off of the far-more-popular ‘The Hills” — is technically in it’s second season, but, wow, with two new alpha bitches on board, this is a brand new show in my book and it rocks!

Letter Grade: D

“Cougar Town” (ABC) – I am not easily offended, but the onslaught of crass, unfunny, gross-out jokes on this show made me wanna stop watching before the first commercial break. Yuck…just, yuck.

“Eastwick” (ABC) – Three charming female leads does not a series make. I don’t need a crystal ball to see that this mediocre reworking of an already mediocre movie is headed nowhere fast. Yikes…

“Trauma” (NBC) – The show opens with a kick-ass head-on collision between two helicopters in San Francisco, but it’s all downhill from there. Yawn…

Letter Grade: F

“The Beautiful Life: TBL” (The CW) – Models, runways, drugs, and a skeletal, strung-out Mischa Barton badly playing herself? What’s not to love? Well, amigos…everything. I don’t know what’s funnier…the fact that someone at the CW actually thought this show would be popular enough to warrant a cheesy nickname (“TBL”??) or the fact that it was deservedly canceled after two episodes. Urgh, what a train wreck…

Oh, yeah, and just for the record, these grades are for the episodes that have aired so far. So, if a cool show starts blowing chunks and getting all “Alias” or “Heroes” on us midseason, we reserve the right to change our grades. I mean, hello, it is only October…

Season Finale night on “Lost”

Yeah! Nothing gets the bad taste of lame “Indiana Jones” sequels out of my mouth faster than the prospects of watching three full hours of “Lost” tonight! OK, technically, there are only two new hours of show, but ABC is re-airing the episode from two weeks ago with “new footage” so you know we’ll watch that too!

Now, for those of you still making your way through the previous season’s DVD collections at home — Mom and Courtney — I know you’ll get the urge to skip the horribly uneven Season Three and get to the meat of Season Four. But resist that urge! For while Season Three sucked ass most of the time, there are some moments of true greatness and I think Season Four plays better because of it.

But if you are a little behind in your “Lost” viewing (for whatever reason), I should also advise you to STOP READING NOW as I wouldn’t wanna spoil anything for you. That said, here we go…

First off, while Season Three of “Lost” played like the last years of J.J. Abram’s wildly uneven “Alias” — which we loved for two seasons and then truly despised for two more! — Season Four has been pitch-perfect at every turn.

Shocking, exciting and sometimes, even heartbreakingly beautiful — did you not shed a tear when Sun and Hurley visited Jin’s grave? Wow…sad! — this season on “Lost” has been the best yet.

Whether it’s the fact that the strike-shortened seaon forced the writers to trim the fat on this last batch of episodes or knowing that the show will end after two more 17-episode seasons, the writing this year has rocked hard!

I missed a bunch of episodes while in Santa Fe and every time I talked to Christine on the phone about it, she was literally flipping out: “Hurry home! You gotta watch these so we can talk about them!” So, once I got home, I planted myself in front of that Tivo and watched all five episodes in a row. And let me tell ya, Christine was right…Season Four was on fire!!

Seriously, not since “The X-Files” or that first magical season of “Twin Peaks” have I been so excited about a TV show’s mythology. And though they didn’t have fan sites — or even the internet for that matter! — when “Peaks” first aired, I have even taken to religiously following some of the “Lostie” theory and picture sites online. I know, nerd-tastic!

Speaking of, if you really want your brain to hurt, check out the time travel theories and timelines on TimeLoopTheory.com. I read through the whole thing the other night and my head was swimming. If even one of this dude’s theories are true…wow, just…wow.

For me, the mythology on “Lost” has always been compelling, but in this past season, it has taken the show in whole new directions — time travel, the idea of a “constant”, the “Oceanic Six”, Jacob and the other half-dead inhabitants of his cabin, etc. — that are just kind of…jaw-dropping. Really!

When the curiously-ageless Richard showed up in the flashbacks to visit a young John Locke and saw his child-like drawing of the island’s black smoke. Holy crap!! We just about fell off the couch screaming!

And when Richard then proceeded to give little Locke a strange Dalai Lama-like reincarnation test — he presented Locke with a knife, a compass, a comic book and a vial of sand and asked him to pick which items were his — we were mesmerized. The fact that John failed the test was even more compelling. What the hell does all this all mean?

Hopefully we’ll get some answers tonight, but with two seasons left to go, I kind of doubt it. But with the show operating on all cylinders, as it has all season, I ‘m sure they’ll give us something juicy to savor over the long summer break.

And even though we don’t have any grand plans for a Dharma Initiative Party — which looks and sounds like a blast! — with the prospect of John Locke “moving the island” on tonight’s episode, we are bracing ourselves for some pretty crackling good action on “Lost” tonight!

Ooo, gotta go…the show’s starting. Yes, we have a Tivo, but this is one show that demands “live viewing”. So, see ya in my next flash-forward…