What I've Been Watching

  I'll get to the review portion of our program in a few paragraphs. First, some business.

 The regular calendar says it's spring, but the TV calendar -- and the temperature -- say it's summer. And that means that there's just not much for me to write about for the next few months.

 And yeah, I know USA and TNT and a bunch of the other cable stations are premiering new shows this summer, but frankly, none of them really appeal to me. Of the returning shows, I'd love to follow Burn Notice, but I don't see myself getting caught up with season two in time to enjoy season three (I'm not a fan of watching shows out of order). Monk and Psych are both enjoyable, but they don't lend themselves to weekly analysis the way Lost or even The Office do.

 That isn't to say I'm taking the summer off. (Well, as far as the blog is concerned.) I need to finish out Breaking Bad, and Mad Men returns in August. I'm sure I'll weigh in on at least a few of the summer replacement shows, if any of them catch my fancy (although at this point it seems doubtful). I'll be writing about some of the shows I'm finally getting around to, like the first season of In Treatment (and I know the world's dying to hear what an unemployed ex-journalist thinks of a show that came out last year).

 I'll also have lists (in the pipe: one on British TV, another on comic book series that would make excellent TV shows). And I may even write about movies, books or music, if the mood is right. I mean, it's my blog; I can talk about what I ate for breakfast (and I assure you, I won't).

 And now, on to what I've been watching this week, namely, the finales of Criminal Minds (boo) 24 (yay for the season, boo for the finale) and the pilot episode of Glee (cautious yay). Spoilers are ahead.

 I wouldn't call myself a fan of Criminal Minds, but aside from the original CSI, it's been the only one of CBS' crime dramas I can tolerate. Because it airs at the same time as Lost, I lost track of it for much of the season. Maybe I needed the time off. After watching last night's bloated season finale, I'm not even sure I'd call it a tolerable show anymore.

 A lot of critics don't like Criminal Minds because of its lurid, gruesome plots. I'm fine with blood on the screen. I'm not so keen on all the bloodless characters. After seeing much of the show's run, I barely care about any of the people on it, save for the two nerdy, outcast characters, Spencer Reid and Penelope Garcia. The case last night involved a quadriplegic doctor (Garrett Dillahut, always welcome) who was using his mentally retarded brother to procure victims to...

 You know what? I'm sort of bored just recounting it. The case ends with both brothers dead (the doctor killed by a victim's brother; the other brother shot by the police) and the agents traumatized. It was supposedly the worst case they had handled, but nothing on the screen conveyed that. There was also a last minute cliffhanger twist (Thomas Gibson's Agent Hotchner is apparently shot by a killer from a previous episode), but the show -- and Gibson, who plays the agent as if he's full of novacaine -- has given us no reason to care about that happens.* This is probably the first and last thing you'll see me say about this show.

 * Interestingly, NBC's new police drama Southland ended its first season with a character being shot. That show's been on for seven weeks -- compared to Criminal Minds' four seasons -- and I've only seen two episodes, yet I was more invested in what happens to the Southland character than Gibson's. I'm not sure if that's a measure of Southland's quality or (more likely) Criminal Minds' lack of characterization.

 Ditto 24. All in all, it was a much better season than the one that came before it. At the same time, the producers could have shown episodes of Small Wonder in the middle of this year's 24 and it wouldn't have been that much worse than season six.

 But seriously, I think this season did a lot of things right. It made Jack more complicated, featured a great, scenery chomping performance by Jon Voight, and introduced Renee Wallker, a bad-ass FBI agent who was just as tough as Jack but with a stronger moral compass. The biggest problem I had with the finale was one of the biggest problems I had with the season as a whole: Tony.

 Tony died in season 5, and then returned this year thanks to some pseudo-scientific explanation (a lot more pseudo than science). First he was evil, then he was revealed to be undercover, then he was evil, then he was...well, still evil, although his motives were slightly less villainous: he wanted revenge for the death of his wife. That meant killing this mastermind character introduced a few episodes from the finish. (We learned from Tony that this guy was the real Big Bad back in Season 5.)

 Tony failed to carry out his mission, probably because he stopped to make a big speech, which included the meant-to-be-shocking reveal that Tony's wife had been pregnant when she died, which meant Tony was avenging for two. He gets dragged away by the feds at the end, raving like an unmasked old man in the final scene of a Scooby Doo episode.

 All in all, I don't think this show really calls for in depth review, do you? Twitter will suffice for season 8.

 Lastly, I wanted to say a quick word about Glee, the new series from Ryan Murphy. In its first two seasons -- the second especially -- Murphy's nip/tuck was one of the best things on TV. (I thought it sort of fell apart at the end of the third season, and gave up on it after that.)

 It's too early to tell whether Glee's first season will deserve the same praise, but I can say this: it was a highly entertaining pilot for a comedic-drama that shows a lot of promise.It's the story of high school Spanish teacher Will Schuester who's trying to revive his school's failing glee club. It's smart, funny and sweet, with a bit of darkness thrown in. 

 I wish I had more to go on than just the pilot. Here are some preliminary thoughts:

• I liked its depiction of high school: the casual cruelty, the caste system, the belief that the things that happened to you there were The Most Important Things to Ever Happen to Anyone Ever.
• Some of the funniest lines had to do with the caste system. The football coach explaining why his players stay away from things like the glee club: "Last week they held down one of their teammates and shaved off his eyebrows just because he watched Grey's Anatomy."
• Other pop culture references don't work as well. Schuester says he wants to reach out to the glee club kids because they're "invisible. That's why every one of them has a MySpace page." Ugh.
• Another small quibble: for a show about music, the background music here is really irritating: a cappella renderings of popular tunes.
• A lot of critics have called this a satire of High School Musical, but I mostly thought of an even sharper satire: Alexander Payne's Election. That could be because of Rachel Berry (played by Lea Michele, pictured above), who's like a spiritual sister to Election's Tracy Flick (although a bit nicer).
• Similarly, just as the teacher in Election manipulates a popular jock into running for class president, Schuester cons the school quarterback -- who can really sing -- into joining the glee club by "finding" marijuana in his locker and threatening to turn him in. "This much pot could be a felony," Schuester says, holding an envelope the size of a cell phone.
• I complained about the soundtrack music, but the singing here is delightful, because the kids are so into it. They're all pretty good singers, but their faith is shaken toward the end of the episode, when they visit a rival high school, whose glee club puts on a Broadway-ready version of Amy Winehouse's "Rehab." In an interview with Fresh Air earlier this week, Murphy said he'd seen YouTube clips of actual high school's doing similar production numbers.
• And that's it for now. When TV's summer hiatus ends, Glee is one of the main things I'll be looking forward to.

 Tom Coombe

 (Photo by FOX)

Comments

[Brian]

Hey now...You totally can't be mocking "Small Wonder." It's just bad form...

[Tom Coombe]

Did you WATCH that link?