Seven years in the life

Once again, I'm following in the footsteps of PJ. I don't mind following, though-I choose to believe she's got a figure like Lisa "Cuddy" Edelstein.

For her "Thursday 13" today PJ ran a selection of TV shows about the teenage years, and that got me thinking. I've done a post about high school movies, but never TV shows. So...

(To keep it interesting, at least for me, I decided to limit myself to shows which actually aired while I was a teenager. For better and for worse, these are the shows my generation looked to. God help us.)

Married...With Children



One of the greatest, most underrated sitcoms of the past 15-20 years.



Roseanne

It's ironic, but I really think you can trace the decline of this show by how much power Roseanne had over her character.

In the first years, Roseanne Conner is a strong, funny, loving woman. At the end, she's controlling, grim, and hateful.

But man, the writers and actors on this were so strong...before she destroyed it all.

Happy Days

Happy Days is more interesting for what it tells us about the '70s and '80s (Scott Baio -- what were we thinking?), than about the '50s. Just as That '70s Show will tell future generations more about what passed for entertainment around the turn of the century than the 1970's.

But hey, I watched it, you watched it...

One Day At A Time



All I really remember right now about this series is that bouncy theme song...

Alf

What always used to aggravate me about this series is that the puppet was so much funnier than the family they put around him. That is why he is still working now and most of them are not.

I think I did have an early crush on Andrea Elson, though.



The Cosby Show

Well, let's face it. If you grew up in the '80s, this pretty much defined sitcoms for you. But that doesn't mean I don't agree with the Simpsons satire of the episodes in which one of the grandparents (all of whom were great jazz musicians) played...

Growing Pains

Ok, Kirk Cameron turned out to be a clueless born-again, but this show was actually funny...three or four times...

Gimme a Break!



See One Day at a Time. But, Nell Carter did have a fine voice.



Family Ties

I have darn fond memories of this series, though I think I'd be hard-pressed to tell you why. Guess it's another '80s thing. At least, I don't think it was just because Justine Bateman was so hot...

Charles In Charge




Come to think of it, why hasn't anyone put together a"Charles In Charge curse" theory? Look at the facts.

Scott Baio appeared in a "reality" series that showed him to be an uncommonly boring asshole.
Willie Aames has now found God and appears in a series of videos for children as the scripture-spouting superhero Bibleman.
Nicole Eggert dated Corey Haim.
Josie Davis does fully nude scenes in poorly-reviewed, barely released movies directed by actors who are apparently better at that.
Jennifer Runyon retires to San Clemente.

Tell me somebody on that show didn't desecrate a shrine somewhere along the way.

A Year In The Life



This was a miniseries I loved followed by a regular series I only liked, but I remember both were incredibly well-acted.

Silver Spoons

Okay. This isn't exactly the best show in history...

Parker Lewis Can't Lose



Why do I have the feeling there may have been more to this series than I can remember at the moment? (Besides the fact that a quick Yahoo! search just revealed to me that Milla Jovovich was in the pilot)

Plus these series about which I've got little or nothing to say:



Call to Glory (or, Elisabeth Shue: Who knew?), The Facts of Life, Who's the Boss? (or, Alyssa Milano: Who knew?)



Head Of The Class (or, Robin Givens: Who knew?), My Two Dads, It's Your Move, Kate & Allie (or, Allison Smith...), The Hogan Family, The New Adventures of Beans Baxter...

If the Farrelly brothers want me to see "The Heartbreak Kid"-and based on its cool (and not in a good way) box office, they do...

...they're going to have to work a lot harder to convince me that a perfectly pleasant, good-looking woman like Malin Akerman is the nightmare she's apparently supposed to be in the movie.

Seriously, they keep running ads where the worst thing she does is sing along to dumb pop music. And we're supposed to identify with Ben Stiller's suffering because he's too hip & cool to do so.



All it does, at least to me, is make him look like the kind of prude that I'd get sick of a lot faster than I would a sexy drinkawater who just happens to like the Spice Girls.

Besides. I'm a sucker for leopardskin...

My girl Tara Reid is looking gooooooooooooooooood

As Snagglepuss would say: Beautiful even.



I always knew she had it in her.

Sting-rock's worst lyricist?

[Police] Frontman Sting was just lambasted by music magazine Blender as rock's worst lyricist. The teacher-turned-rocker writes lines that according to the publication exude "mountainous pomposity (and) cloying spirituality."

Sting topped the list, to be published in the November issue, for a few laughable lyrics, including the decision to quote a Volvo bumper sticker in "If You Love Someone Set Them Free,"

Fair enough, I suppose. Though what bothers me about that song is the notion that it's always multi-billionaire rock stars like Sting and John Lennon telling us we can live here and be happy with less. Otherwise, Sting was good when he was good.

Also making the top five, Rush drummer Neil Peart at number two

Why is he here? Because he's here. Why did it happen? Because it happened.

Creed frontman Scott Stapp at number three,

I seem to have made it to 36 without ever really hearing, or at least retaining, any of Stapp's songwriting. Ditto Dan Fogelberg, who's at number five.

Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher at number four,

And after all...you're my...

Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant made the list at number 23 for the song "Ramble On," which contains references to J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series

I don't care much for, or about Led Zeppelin, but I will say that Plant, in interviews and such, seems to have a decent sense of humor about him.

Carly Simon was also taunted for "You're So Vain," which rhymes the words "yacht," "apricot" and "gavotte."

Again-fair enough, but there's so much more to mock Ms. Simon for than her bad rhymes. Like for instance, that she once turned down a chance to sing "One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)" with Frank Sinatra. Because she didn't want to be seen to be promoting drunk driving.

Even one of the Fab Four members made the list - Paul McCartney sat at number 38 for his duet with Stevie Wonder, Ebony and Ivory, a song about racial harmony

True-McCartney can be a very lazy lyricist, especially without Lennon around to keep him honest. But this is far from his worst effort. I still think that's "Live & Let Die" ("And in this ever changing world in which we live in...").

But even composers we love can let us down. I still can't believe Joe Jackson wrote Night And Day II. Or Pet Shop Boys wrote Release.

On the other hand, inspired lyricists lift dull composers, why do you think almost everything Andrew Lloyd Webber writes without Tim Rice sucks?

Adrianne Palicki

I was reminded by Alan Coil's comment that I hadn't posted a picture of her with my Friday Night Lights post of four days ago, so I went searching for one.

This is dumb, but what the hell it's my blog: In this picture (from an unaired pilot she did in 2004), she reminds me a lot of my character Annabel. She's even the right age.

I just haven't seen her do enough to know if I think she's versatile enough to play the character.

Certainly Palicki's role on FNL is nothing like it. (Not that she doesn't do a lovely job on that series, she does.) But suddenly I'm thinking, idly, that I'd like to see more of her as an actress.

I really like Sara Gilbert.

Had a look at The Big Bang Theory tonight because I'd read she was going to guest, reuniting with her former Roseanne co-star
Johnny Galecki.

She's supposedly recurring, which is a good move, since their one (1) scene was a lesson in what real chemistry looks like.

Made me wish rather than what happened in the last season of Roseanne, they'd just spun Darlene & David off into their own series (a kind of Generation X Mad About You).

The difference with the rest of the (pretty sitcom-stale) show was almost like night and day.

As a rule I find it difficult to care about dumb characters, perhaps especially dumb-girl characters, and that appears to be what Kaley Cuoco is playing here.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not enough for dumb girls on TV to be hot (and to my taste, Cuoco's only tepid). You must also be funny.

I didn't care about the geeky guys either, but at least they made me laugh, albeit infrequently. I got the idea I was more supposed to respect them for actually making jokes about Asimov's rules of robotics, regardless of whether the jokes are actually funny.

The problem with writing characters who are supposed to be smart, at least in sitcoms, is that you want to be able to get them into sitcom situations. So that laugher will ensue. But you don't want them to act like idiots, because they're supposed to be smart.

Fraiser had eight or nine years before it really started going downhill that way. Bang seems to be starting at that lower level.

It didn't hurt too badly, but I doubt I'll be tuning in again unless they dump a third of the cast and offer Gilbert anything she wants to come on board permanent.

Noted for the record

Caught a documentary on cable early this morning: Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film. Not bad if, as they say, you're into that sort of thing. I'm mostly in it for the talking back to the screen.

However, there was one quite unfortunate mistake: At one point, Wes Craven was identified by a caption as both the director and writer of Scream. Au, contraire! That movie was written by Kevin Williamson...

Of course, I only put gumdrops in, so I wouldn't weally hurt him

PJ asked for her readers favorite cartoons; I thought I'd inflict mine on, I mean, share mine with you. And just for the heck of it, I decided to do it with pictures instead of words.

Let me know if there's anything here (in no particular order, and click to see images in original size...) you don't recognize...












Whoops! How'd that one get in there...

I didn't think I was that far out on the fringe

According to one of those "find your candidate" quizes, if I were to support the candidate with whom I most agree on the issues, that candidate would be...Dennis Kucinich. My other "top matches" included first runner up Mike Gravel, about whom I know little.

We have to wait until third place to find a candidate I actually like, John Edwards. The more the "haircut story" goes around, the more I like him, becuase the more I think he scares Republicans.

Hillary Clinton is fourth. My problems with Mrs Clinton go back at least as far as the chocolate chip cookie recipe thing. Yes, I think there was "a vast, right-wing conspiracy"-but I also think she and Bill played right into their hands.

My "middle of the pack" candidates start with Barack Obama, which surprises me. As with Edwards, based on likability, I expected him to be higher. Then comes Joe Biden, with whom I became disenchanted a long time ago. Chris Dodd is in the same category with Mike Gravel. Ditto Bill Richardson.

Ron Paul scores highest for me among Republicans, which doesn't surprise me, as he doesn't support Bush's war in the middle east. Here's the rest of my "middle of the pack" score:

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) - 28.57%
Arizona Senator John McCain (R) - 21.43%
Businessman John Cox (R) - 17.86%
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) - 14.29%
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) - 10.71%

And finally, the "bottom of the barrel." Four candidates who will get my vote when they pry it from my cold, dead hands:

Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) - 7.14%
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) - 3.57%
California Representative Duncan Hunter (R) - 0.00%
Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (R) - 0%

I note with gallows humor that if this is accurate, my nightmare Republican ticket would be Hunter/Thompson. Saints preserve us, Uncle Duke.

Meanwhile, "30 Rock" wins the Emmy. 30 million people watch "American Idol." A "Watchmen" rip-off was the big hit of last season.

Don't get me started on the popular crowd.

Friday Night Lights second season premiere tonight was a good reminder of just what I like about this show which critics love, but most people aren't watching. And what I find so aggravating.



What's aggravating is that sometimes they resort to melodrama in the worst sense, as with a sudden death tonight. And I don't mean the football term. This is the series at its most predictable and, like most, it's best when it's unpredictable.

And sometimes (though this is, thankfully, more rare) a speech feels overwritten. I was willing to let tonight's example slide by because it was spoken by the coach's daughter, Julie, who has always been presented as a little bit different. More literate, if that's not putting too fine a point on it.

But-

Although I don't think I've really thought much about this series since almost a year ago, when I said this-

The acting is particularly strong, and the directing style, lots of hand-held work accentuating close-ups, helps put it over. Another great score by Snuffy Walden, too. The writing is not flashy-great in the way of an Aaron Sorkin, but the words fall easily upon the ear. You believe the characters have depth and an existence away from that moment.

Also, the perhaps-surprising number of strong female characters is lovely.

-I was surprised at how much I liked seeing the characters again; finding out where they all are eight months (in story time) after the end of last season. I've really come to care for them. And as I've said many times, any show that can make me feel this way while being mostly (but not only) about high school football must be doing something right.

A lot of what it does right is what I look for in a good drama: I may not always like what the characters are doing, but I usually believe it's what they would do in a given situation. Nobody's perfect and everybody's broken in some way. The relationships between the characters are dynamic and there's real, not artificial conflict, for the most part.

That's what I like.

New Amazon review

Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years, by Michael Palin.

This is either despicable or just sad

Republican presidential contenders on Friday scolded Congress for extravagant spending of tax dollars, and Rudy Giuliani blamed the issue for GOP losses in last year's elections.

Yeah, that's what it was, Rudy. The spending.

It wasn't that the republican leaders showed themselves to be selfish and ignorant on a scale un-dreamt of by most politicians.

It wasn't that Cheney said "We Will, In Fact, Be Greeted As Liberators."

It wasn't that they made a pedophile co-chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus.

It wasn't ole' Rick "man on dog" Santorum.

The spending. That's what it was.

Right.

(Sometimes a man has to resort to sarcasm.)

Ok, this is getting freaky

I decided to post a video for "Pineapple Face," by Revenge. Revenge was a 1990 electronic/rock/house/indie trio formed by Peter Hook, bass player with New Order.

I don't often post two videos in a row, but this is a really good record and one I hadn't heard for a while, although I do still have the album. (A pre-release tape, no less.)

So I do the usual search on Google, and find the video.



Watching it, I'm thinking about how I can get a good joke out of the fact that the imagery is so heavily lesbo. Something I either never knew or had forgotten.

You know, something along the lines of "dear god, I can't get away!" I've done it before. (For any of you who don't know, I have this story I've been trying to sell about a lesbian couple named Annabel and Keitha.)

But then I do a second Google search looking for a little more information about Revenge I can sprinkle throughout this post.

That's when I find out that the single release of "Pineapple Face" contained a credit for "Revenge girl." I'm assuming this is a reference to the model featured in the front cover artwork.

Her name?

...Keita.

Right and wrong - do you know the difference? 'Tween the right and the left and the east and the west...

As I used to say, if you don't like Joe Jackson, there's something wrong with you. Here he is recording "Right and Wrong" live.

Pushing Daisies is bad. Life is good.

The new series "Pushing Daisies" is brought to us by Bryan Fuller, the creator of "Dead Like Me," which I know has its fans. I never warmed up to it, but it was better than this. He also did "Wonderfalls," apparently, which I never saw. Executive producer and director of the pilot is Barry Sonnenfeld, who seems to miss ("Wild, Wild West") at least as often as he hits ("Men In Black").

It's about a man who learns as a boy that if he touches something dead (animals, people, fruit) they will come back to life. But if he ever touches them again after that, they will die again, permanently. And if he lets them live for more than a minute, somebody else, nearby, will die to take their place.

You might ask yourself: What would you do if you had such a gift? But what you should be asking is: What would you do if you had such a gift and needed to make it into a workable TV series?

That's right, the man goes into business with a PI buddy to solve murders by simply reviving the victim, asking them who did it, and "putting them down" again. As one would.

To be fair, it's not really the premise of the series that I find such fault with (another one of my minority opinions). Although, it is a rip off of "Tru Calling," which had its own problems but at least offered the fantastic sight of Eliza Dushku running.



Plus an element of "Torchwood" (about which series I can only repeat: Don't get me started). And oh yes, a little "Final Destination," which I haven't seen but I know the gimmick.

But it's the production and writing that really put me off.

The visuals are admittedly rich...too much so. It's like being force-fed a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts. It might sound fun, but after the first couple you'd be coughing and choking.


See what I mean?

The heavily sprayed-on music doesn't help either.

I want to be kind to the actors, so the worst I'll say about Lee Pace, as the man with the gift, is that he's mostly blah. I want to believe he could do better, but who knows?

One series star who I do know can do better is Anna Friel, who plays Pace's childhood love whom he revives and then can never touch again. Friel is a sexy young woman who is also capable of fine work as an actress (see the very engaging "Me Without You").

Another is Chi McBride, as the PI. He's the best thing here. McBride can always be relied upon for killer performances. But if "Daisies" lasts longer than his previous series ("The Nine")...there is no god.

Completing the trio of actors who are better than this material was Swoosie Kurtz (of "Dangerous Liaisons" and more than a few others) as Friel's aunt.

And then there's Kristin Chenoweth, who plays a waitress in the pie shop Pace's character owns who is also sweet on him. I know Aaron Sorkin loves Chenoweth both as an actress and as a woman; I know she inspired (at least in part) Sarah Paulson's Harriet on "S60." But I have yet to fall under her spell.

As for the writing, well, one of the things nearly every book on screenwriting tells you to avoid is voice-over narration. I don't believe that's a hard-and-fast rule, and narration can work (see certain episodes of "The West Wing," "Sports Night" or "M*A*S*H" for TV examples). But 99% of the time, it's a good rule to keep to, and the reason is so you avoid using it for the cheap exposition this show does.

(Even when the narration doesn't cover it, the dialogue has great big lumps of exposition floating around in it.)

There was not one moment in the pilot-not a single one-which we were allowed to discover for ourselves as an audience. Instead, we're hit over the head by a narrator telling us who the characters are, their backstories, and why they're doing what they're doing.

That the narration is spoken by Jim Dale-a great childhood favorite of mine for his performances onscreen in "Pete's Dragon" and onstage in "Barnum" makes it nostalgically relaxing. But it's still one of the laziest, cynical-because of its implied assumption that the audiences are idiots-pieces of writing I have ever seen.

And I've seen "Spider-Man 3" and "Dr. Doolittle 2."

What a release, then, an hour later, to watch the second episode of "Life" (preceded by the announcement: "An all-new 'Life' starts...right now!" If only.)

One or two of the issues I had last week seem to be correcting themselves and yes, that does include letting Sarah Shahi's gorgeousness show more.

I liked it at least as much as the pilot if not more so.

Sentences you didn't expect to read

I was prepared to trade the 'shit' for the 'oral sex',

-From Michael Palin's Diaries 1975 (he was talking about negotiating with the censor over Monty Python & the Holy Grail's rating)