Reviews
Deeper, analytical pieces on shows and episodes.
I have to be honest. I remember watching advertisements of 10 Items or Less back in 2006. I was not interested. The commercials reminded me of Saved By The Bell – a show I was addicted to as a kid but hate as an adult. Now that I’m all grown up, the stupid, lame jokes of Saved By the Bell make me wish I could shoot myself instead of enduring another half hour of Zach and gang. So, to avoid being suicidal, I didn’t tune in for 10 Items. After watching “Turkey Bowling”, the 10 Items or Less season premiere, I realize how misleading marketing can be and regret not giving the show a chance 2 years ago.
Ai-ight. That’s more like it. At this point, I’m wondering whether Rogers, Downey, and Devlin have a mind probing satellite in geosynchronous orbit. A satellite tuned to my brain waves so they can put a show on the air specifically tailored to my tastes. Because this one? This one was exactly up my alley.
Look, man! You’re lucky on this deadline I didn’t give you a baking soda volcano.
Remember in last week’s review, when I expressed my concern that Leverage might wear out its welcome if every episode involved helping out someone from the team’s past? That’s because I’d already seen “The Miracle Job” and knew that two consecutive episodes had done that very thing. It’s a small complaint, but I would really rather see strangers taking advantage of the services of Leverage Consulting & Associates.
However, if they were all going to be as much fun as this one, I wouldn’t make much of a fuss over it.
Oh Jiminy Jehoshaphat! I went out on a limb for you people. A tree limb, jutting from a cliff with my limbs dangling over certain death. So don’t leave me dangling with Dwight’s disappearance.
In a break from format, tonight’s episode of Pushing Daisies eschewed the MoW and was all the stronger for it. Tying up loose threads, before dropping some new ones, tonight was all about Charles’s disappearance and Dwight’s death.
Vivian, as innocent and naive as ever, asks Emerson for help tracking down her missing paramour, Dwight Dixon. But Emerson already knows where Dwight can be found, six feet underground where he left him. But treating Vivian roughly to convince her she’s been abandoned doesn’t work: she hires The Norwegians.
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. 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:
Sophie: I don’t know what comes of chasing the past, Eliot.
Eliot: Well Sophie, sweetie, I don’t think you and Nate get to serve me that particular meal.
If I had to highlight one concern I have about the legs on Leverage, it would be on display in tonight’s episode. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a finely crafted hour of television with some twisty goodness, but its entire premise is that someone on the team has to help someone from his past. I don’t want to spend every week learning about Eliot’s lost love or Hardison’s old buddies in the AV club, or Parker’s…whatever psychiatric nurse she really liked in her youth. Instead I want strangers tracking down Leverage Consulting & Associates - preferably talking to Nate while he wears kooky disguises - and asking for help.
Eliot’s got history with Willy and Aimee Martin, a history of a future derailed. He was engaged to be engaged to Aimee, guest star Jaime Ray Newman (Heroes, Veronica Mars,) but hit the road and never returned. Eliot’s chosen profession doesn’t lend itself to domesticated bliss, and he apparently spent some time undergoing “enhanced coercive interrogation techniques” when he should have been back home tending his relationship. Ain’t that always the way? You meet a girl, give her a promise ring, and then get captured and beaten over a monkey.
Yes, there are only four more Dirty Sexy Money episodes left to air before ABC finally pulls the plug. And dammit! It’s just getting good. Last night’s, “The Plan”, left us with a classic cliffhanger - who gets shot? We’ve been promised one is killed, one has amnesia and another is in a coma.
I have two theories. One, Chase gets killed, Karen has amnesia and Patrick is in a coma. Chase gets hit by a police officer’s bullet. It’s a convenient way to get rid of Patrick’s ‘problem’ and the Darlings avoid a messy investigation into Ellen’s death. Karen, after being knocked out, forgets she was going to even marry Simon Elder and is able to pursue Nick without any resentment. And Patrick, comatosed, is tucked away for a while, earning public sympathy making it easier for him to get together with Carmelita when he wakes up.
Theory number two: Carmelita is killed, Chase is in a coma and Patrick has amnesia. Carmelita is out of the way and Tripp no longer has to worry she will ruin his son’s political career. Chase is unable to expose what he thinks is his sister’s murder but the threat still hangs in the background for the Darlings. Patrick has amnesia and doesn’t even know his wife is dead.
What do you think? Who do you think bit the dust last night? And how in the world can we convince ABC to change their minds and renew Dirty Sexy Money?
A pie is simple it’s limited. Just a bit of pastry and filling. Cake is complex, layered with treasures waiting to be discovered. Which one do you choose?
Pushing Daisies is just bold enough that I believed there was a small chance Chuck would leave with her father tonight. Not forever necessarily, but at this late date it might as well be. I honestly did not know whether Chuck would choose cake or pie, so when she told Ned her spoon landed right where she was, I was glad. But I didn’t buy that her father was going to be happy about it. He’s chosen too, and his spoon is taking him, and Ned’s car, elsewhere.
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.
Doc, he’s cool. I found him on the Internet.
Yes, that never goes badly.
The second episode, airing in its regular slot on Tuesday nights finds the team scattered around the world. That’s not really a shock as they aren’t a team yet. Sophie’s still “acting”, auditioning for a soap commercial with all the subtlety and nuance she can muster, Parker’s stealing art, and Eliot’s off hurting people. Only Nate and Hardison are back at home setting up the offices of Leverage Consulting & Associates, founded by the very handsome and leonine Harlan Leverage, III.
