In Mo Ryan’s recap/preview of FNL’s third season she pointed out how much this season has replayed the greatest hits of season one.¹ That’s certainly true, but is to be expected to a certain extent in a show about teenagers. After all, while it feels horribly unique and unprecedented when you’re living through it, age and perspective show us that the teenage experience is common across the generations.

Fathers and sons fight. Daughters grow into women. Our parents and grandparents grow smaller and feebler before our eyes.

But while I’m all for some repetition of themes and motifs, tonight actually irritated me. Tell me if any of this sounds familiar to you:

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1. And fortunately did NOT put any dead bodies in the trunks of cars. [↩]

I am really excited for the second season of Leverage. Sharker is going to ROCK!

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.

God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.

So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.”
Genesis 6:11-13

Frak. Frak, frak, frak!

Now, that was something.

But before we get into the discussion, let’s get this out of the way first: I’m not surprised by the polarizing nature of this finale, but I am a bit shocked by the number of people with tin ears and tunnel vision who object to the presence of God and angels. I’m not sure what show those people have been watching for four seasons, but it wasn’t Battlestar Galactica.

Let me clarify that:

Nerds? Shut the fuck up.

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Money comes and goes, yeah? These kids of ours, that’s a one-time deal.

“The Giving Tree” is one of Shel Silverstein’s finest works, and while Landry’s right that his relationship with Tyra superficially resembles it, the story is about parents and children. The give us life, nurture and support us. They feed us, clothe us, give us shelter and succor. They keep us warm and dry and safe. They teach us to play and teach us to become men and women. In the end, we survive our parents. We are their lives’ work and when they finish, when we finally say our goodbyes, it is with love and debt for all they’ve done.

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Rob Thomas makes his return to television, not with the much (un)anticipated rehash of Cupid, but with an original half-hour comedy on Starz.

Party Down premieres this Friday at 10:30 EDT on Starz. There will of course be multiple showings, which reduces the conflict pressure for those watching the BSG finale. It’s also nice to see Starz planned ahead and scheduled a free weekend for customers of DirecTV, so fans of wry, uncomfortable humor will have an opportunity to check the show out for free.

My thoughts below the fold.

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I don’t have a lot to say about the premiere of Kings right yet; it was ambitious and interesting and I’ve saved a season pass for it, but I don’t really know what to think. It could easily degrade into a soapy mess, more 90210 than The West Wing, but Michael Green’s pilot managed to hold the line. It certainly doesn’t hurt that he’s got Ian McShane and Eamonn Walker around to recite some of his Jacobean dialog. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s willing to write such stylized dialog.

Unfortunately the ratings were…poor. Which is a shame, because unlike other high-profile, heavily hyped shows that have premiered lately (*cough* Dollhouse *cough*) this one deserves a chance to fly on its butterfly wings. Sad that someone who played Vamp #3 in some episode of BtVS or another didn’t make an appearance. Maybe the Whedonverse faithful would have tuned it to this with some of the passion they’ve been wasting on that Friday night abortion.

If you didn’t watch the pilot, go online and give it a chance. It’s available on the NBC website and Hulu. If you did watch, pipe in below with your opinion/thoughts on the episode. Did you like it? Will you be giving it a chance? Should we be reviewing it?

I’d like to tell you I’ve come up with some smart thoughts on this one, but I won’t have time to process it fully for a couple of days at least — so instead, I’ve decided to wrap up all of “Daybreak” in one post next weekend. All I can say now is: I can’t think of anything I’d like more than to spend the next year learning more about who these people were “before the fall.” Because I still can’t bear the thought of letting them go after only two more hours.

Of course, feel free to leave a comment if there’s something you’d like to discuss now. I’m always up for talking.

When Friday Night Lights is at its best, football is the hub around which each story revolves. Some are obviously and tightly coupled, such as the QB controversy or Matt standing tall under the weight of hit after hit to go back for one more play, one more yard. Some seem detached, like Mindy and Billy acting out the behaviors they’ll repeat for the next 30 years. But in the good episodes, every story – every *person* – is impacted by Panther Football. Tonight was one of those episodes.

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We are always looking for new contributors here at DreamLoom, right now more than ever. See, I’m about done with TV I’d write about for the next couple of months unless one of the new shows coming up really grabs me hard. Leverage and Burn Notice are off until the summer, Friday Night Lights is winding down its season, and even if I wrote about BSG…well…there are only three hours left!!!

I don’t think I’ve got any shows in my queue until July.

I’m planning on doing some different things in the interim – reviewing DVD collections, longer critical pieces on some older shows, maybe doing a deep critical breakdown of Burn Notice as I write a new spec episode – but that’s not going to fill the week. Kari’s going to be done with BSG soon and that’ll just leave us with her excellent Flight of the Conchords reviews unless she feels some love for anything else on the air. And Tawnya is still mourning Dirty Sexy Money, I think.

So, if you’ve got something to say about something we don’t…why don’t you contact us with a writing sample and some ideas on what you’d like to write for us at submissions(nospam)@dreamloom.com.

“Sometimes I wonder what home is. Is it an actual place? Or is it some kind of longing for something, some kind of connection?”
—Laura Roslin

“One of us here is living proof that there is life after death.”
—Gaius Baltar

“This ship has never let us down. So we’re gonna send her off in style.”
—Bill Adama

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