TV Talk

I have entered a phase in my knitting when I'm totally bored with all of my projects. I'm sort of nearing the end of them all, and they're all green and/or gray, as you know. Plus, they're ribbing or stockinette. *yawn* Here are the second front and sleeves of the Cardigan for Merry:



Now I have to sew it together and then knit on the hood. At least then I'll have the cabling to perk up my interest. I'm a little worried about the blocking thing, though. These pieces have benefitted greatly from being soaked in hair conditioner and water and pinned out. (On a side note, the water did have a tinge of green and looked fairly dirty. It's Andean Treasure from Knitpicks. It fills a little dirty while knitting, too. So, beware if you are knitting with this yarn in the future). Since the hood is knit onto the cardigan, I need to either dunk the hood and pin it out or re-wash the whole darn thing. I'll probably end up doing that.

Anyway, since the knitting is boring, I'll do my annual fall tv report. As you may have heard, the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) may be going on strike. Their current union contract expired yesterday. Films take so long to make that you probably won't see any fallout in the film world. I'm sure the writers will keep writing on their own while on strike, so once the strike is over, they'll just be able to sell those scripts off. TV is another thing all together, though.

First thing you'll see is the nightly chat shows. They have new content every single day and pretty much all of the hosts are also members of the WGA. So, as soon as Monday we could be seeing re-runs of Letterman and the Daily Show, etc. The networks have been preparing for a possible strike, ordering lots of scripts and bumping up production of shows, so what we see now will probably continue at least through the end of the year, and I hear most of the them will be able to get through February sweeps if there's a long, protracted strike. Fox will be in the best position, of course, because American Idol doesn't have writers. Last time there was a strike, the reality tv boom was born, so expect to see lots of re-runs of some shows and lots of reality tv and news shows if the strike lasts.

One positive aspect of a possible strike is it seems like the networks are giving their new shows time to develop. We're a little over a month into the new tv season and only two shows have been cancelled. Last year there were far more cancellations by this time. The cancellations were a dumb reality show called Nashville and a show called Viva Laughlin. I watched the two episodes of Viva Laughlin and I didn't really like it, but I was willing to give it a little more time. It was about a guy who opens a casino in Laughlin, NV and is suspected of killing his former business partner. What made it really different is that the characters sang along to the songs on the soundtrack. Like in the opening, the main character is driving to and then walking around his new casino and he's singing along to Elvis singing Viva Las Vegas. It was weird. I'm kind of glad I'm not wasting any more time on it.

So, on to the other new shows. I'll go by what day they air:

Monday

Chuck (NBC)- I really like this one. Chuck is a computer geek who has a bunch of government secrets in his head. An NSA hottie and a CIA agent go undercover as his girlfriend and his co-worker to protect him/exploit his knowledge. It is totally illogical, but a ton of fun. I like all the actors in this show and their chemistry with each other.

K-Ville (Fox) - This one is ok. It's starring Cole Hauser and Anthony Anderson as post-Katrina New Orleans cops. In the opening it's revealed that the Hauser character is actually an ex-con. I kind of like that aspect and the post-Katrina fall out. The rest of it is kind of typical cop show stuff.

Journeyman (NBC) - I really like this one too. The lead character is a reporter who suddenly starts travelling through time (he has no control over where and when he travels) to fix something in the past - save someone's life or help them make a different decision or something. He's married and has a little boy, so this can be very inconvenient. He also has a brother, who is a cop, and who also used to date his wife, so their relationship is a bit rocky. Kevin McKidd from Rome plays the main character and I like him. This show fits into a trend this year (like Chuck), of having stand alone stories, with a little bit of an ongoing story too. So you can watch individual episodes and enjoy them and not feel like you're missing a whole lot, but if you do watch every week, you're rewarded with a bit more to the story. Last year a lot of shows that had an ongoing story were cancelled, so I think tv execs feel like people can't commit to watching a show every week.

Tuesday

Cane (CBS) - This is the only new show I watch on Tuesdays. It's an old fashioned nighttime soap opera. Jimmy Smits stars as the head of a rum company. He's a refugee from Cuba who was adopted by the founder of the rum company and sort of adopted, but he is also married to the only daughter of the family, which is sort of incestuous, isn't it? Anyway, Jimmy Smits is gorgeous and intense and I like this sort of thing.

Wednesday

Pushing Daisies (ABC) - My favorite new show. It's highly stylized and sort of wacky, but I love it. It's about a guy who has the power to bring things back to life, with his touch. But if he touches something he's brought to life again, it dies for ever. And if he doesn't touch who he's just brought back to life within a minute, someone else dies instead. Which makes him understandably a bit cautious about getting close to people. But his childhood sweetheart dies and he can't help himself, so he brings her back to life and doesn't put her back to death. So now they can't touch again, otherwise she'll die forever. But they love each other deeply. And every week they solve a murder mystery. Kooky, but charming. If you are interested in seeing one new show this year, check this one out.

Back to You (Fox) - To be honest, I've only seen the first episode of this show, so I can't make a good judgment. It seems like a decent enough sitcom, though sitcoms aren't my favorite types of shows. I've taped some more episodes and if I end up loving it, I'll let you know.

Private Practice (ABC) - The spin off from Private Practice. Another gorgeous cast. These guys are a little older, so they're more relatable to me. They seem a little more grounded. They still have their problems, but they seem less angsty about it. I like everyone in the cast, so I'll keep watching it.

Life (NBC) - Another one I really like. It sounds like it has a pretty good following, so hopefully this won't be cancelled even if there is no strike. It stars Damien Lewis from Band of Brothers as a homicide detective who spent 10 years in jail for a murder he didn't commit. As part of his settlement with the City, he gets his job back after he's exonerated. His time in prison has definitely given him a different perspective and I find it really interesting. He's also secretly trying to figure out who set him up for this murder. So, another show with a thread going through the season, but mostly stand alone episodes.

Dirty Sexy Money (ABC) - I like this one too. Peter Krause (local connection!) plays a down to earth lawyer who agrees to take his father's place as a wealthy family's attorney after his father's death. He suspects someone in the family may have murdered his father and figures the best way to investigate is to stay close to the family. The family are all messed up rich folks and their antics are highly amusing.

Nothing new on Thursday, but a whole lot of great returning shows!

Friday

Moonlight (CBS) - The show follows the life of a modern-day Vampire. It's sort of kitschy, but I find the cast attractive and enjoy the stories so far. I probably wouldn't watch it if it were on another night.

Women's Murder Club (ABC) - Although this show is on at the same time as Moonlight and I watch them both, so I must like them both somewhat. This one is about a group of 4 women who all work in the world of criminal law and support each other both at the job and off. I like the cast and I like the mysteries.

No new shows over the weekend, either. Saturday night is dead on tv and Sunday is just a lot of my same old shows.

The one show that I watched and gave up on was Big Shots, on ABC. I had high hopes for that show because I love the cast. But it was just so poorly written and unbelievable, without being tongue in cheek or fun. At least to me. I just didn't find any of the characters in the least bit realistic or interesting.

So, I've been impressed with the new season so far. Some really good shows that I hope won't get cut short with a strike. All of the networks now put their shows on the web so you can catch up with old episodes for free. So if something sounds good, I highly recommend jumping on the computer and catching up.

Back Again

I had a little involuntary blogging break over the last week. My cable modem quit working so I was without internet until I got it replaced this week. It's amazing how something I lived without for 30 years is now such an integral part of my life. Needless to say, besides being behind in my own blogging, I'm behind in my blog reading. You people are very prolific! :-)

Last time I posted, I was going to the MN Music Fest. It was really fun! When I work the Irish Fair, I always work in the ticket/id booth, usually carding people and giving them the id wristbands. At the Music Fest, I was actually in a beer tent, serving beer. People only get ided once, but they come back for beer over and over, so I felt like I had all these friends coming to see me again! Some of them were funny, some would give me a hard time, some were just nice. I even made a couple of dollars in tips, which was nice, since the food smelled great and I was happy to take a break and have a bite to eat. I was at the beer tent next to the main stage, so I was able to hear and see Soul Asylum really well and we closed down before the show was done, so I was able to catch the end of the show "in the crowd". Dave Pirner seemed to be in great spirits and they sounded really good. They played a great mix of old favorites and a few songs off their latest album. I'm really glad I volunteered for this event and I think I'll do it again next year.

What else have I been up to? I saw this movie:



It was pretty funny. I'd say I liked it, but I didn't love it. It's co-written by Seth Rogen, who was the lead actor in "Knocked Up" and produced by the director of that movie, Judd Apatow. So, it has a very similar sensibility. It's about one day and night in the life of two guys who are best friends. They are graduating from high school in a couple of weeks and going to different colleges, so when they are invited to a party, they decide they better make the most of it. The plan is to get two girls that they have crushes on drunk so that they might agree to sleep with them. Yeah, we're not talking high levels of intellectualism in this film. It starts out very, very vulgar and gradually becomes more sweet and sincere, like the other Apatow films. I liked "Knocked Up" and "40 Year Old Virgin" better, but I still laughed hard in some parts and by the end I was really pulling for these guys.

Sunday of course was football day and the Vikings once again embarrassed themselves in losing to the Chiefs. Enough said about that. At least my fantasy football team won!

Last night I went to Talking Volumes at the Fitzgerald Theater. It's sort of a book club that is co-sponsored by Minnesota Public Radio, the Star Tribune newspaper and The Loft Literary Center. The author this time was Sherman Alexie, a Native American author who is also a poet and screenwriter. You may have seen a film he wrote a few years ago, Smoke Signals. He was there discussing his two latest books, one a Young Adult title called, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" and the other a novel called "Flight". He was opinionated, funny and so intelligent and quick-witted. He certainly didn't stick to the topic for any length of time, going off on tangents about politics, race, writing and just about anything else you can think of. It was a highly interesting discussion and I'll definitely be picking up some of his books soon.

Speaking of books, I finished this one:



It's the third in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. If you read this series, I don't need to say more and if you don't read it, I don't want to ruin anything. I'll just say that if you haven't read this series, I highly recommend it. It is much loved and pretty much everyone who picks it up, grows to love it. It's hard to explain what the series is about and sound coherent. The main characters are Claire, a nurse just back from WWII who goes on a second honeymoon with her husband to Scotland and is suddenly transported back 200 years to 18th century Scotland. There she finds her true love, James Fraser. I know it sounds weird, with time travel and romance and historical fiction all rolled up together, but the books are really well written and you get so caught up in the lives of the characters. Especially Claire and Jamie, who are just about ideal. I enjoyed this third book, although there was some really, really weird voodoo stuff toward the end that felt a little out of place to me. Nevertheless, I'm really looking forward to the next episode in this series. The books are all really long and since I'm such a slow reader, it takes me a while to read them, so I won't be picking it up right away. I haven't read a nice mystery for a while, so I'm definitely going to pick up one of those next.

And speaking of WWII, I've been watching The War on PBS. If you haven't been watching, it's a Ken Burns documentary mini-series about WWII, sort of organized around the citizens of 4 towns in America. The Northern town he chose to highlight is Luverne, MN, a small town on the Southwestern border with Iowa and South Dakota, where I just happen to have come from. Both my mother and father graduated from Luverne High School and so both of grandparents lived in Rock County. My parents moved to Sioux Falls shortly after I was born, but until I got a job in 8th grade, I would spend pretty much all of my summers in between my grandparents homes, so I spent lots and lots of time in Luverne. It's been really fun to see the town and its people in such a well-done series. It really makes me miss my grandparents, though. I will have to call my surviving grandfather who now is living near my auntie in Wisconsin and see what he thinks of it. I'm sure he remembers the newspaper editorials they've been featuring in the series and all of the people being interviewed.

I've also been trying to catch some of the new fall shows. This year they seem to have returned to the old style of having a big "fall premiere week". Not every show is premiering this week, but the majority of them are. Last year they tried to spread it out over about 6 weeks. It's kind of nice to have new episodes of your old shows back again.

I've also been knitting a bit - I have one FO and two new projects I haven't posted about yet, but I'll save that for next time.

Summer TV

If you sit down and knit, you actually get things done! What a concept. I finished the first of my Drops Alpaca Socks:



They fit really well, but I'm afraid they're a little too small and the tension when they're on the foot is too much. Here's the side view:



When they're off the foot, they look so incredibly skinny. I tried them on several times while I was knitting, which is really unusual for me, because they looked way too skinny for my feet. I think it's just that they draw in on the sides when you switch from reverse stockinette for the top of the foot and regular stockinette on the bottom of the foot. Plus the cabling of course draws in too. I have no problem getting them on and off, so they're probably ok.

I knit the hat and this sock while getting caught up on my summer tv shows. I really enjoyed the Fringe Festival, but I missed my tv shows. I'm such an addict. Since the new fall schedule is starting up in about a month, I figured now would be as good a time as any to do my annual review of the summer tv schedule.

A couple of shows started this spring and finished earlier this summer that I enjoyed. On FX there was "The Riches" with Minnie Driver and Eddie Izzard as a couple of Travelers, Irish American gypseys who run scams. They and their family run away from the rest of their clan and assume the identity of a suburban family called The Riches. It was a bit wacky, but I really liked it. Driver and Izzard were fantastic as very complex, full characters and despite the fact that they were scam artists, you really came to care about the family. I look forward to that one starting up again.

Speaking of Travelers, there was another show on ABC called "Traveler" that wasn't about a Traveler but rather a mysterious man called "Will Traveler" who sets up his two best friends when he blows up a museum. It was a pretty interesting show, but it's been cancelled, so don't worry if you missed it.

The Tudors played on Showtime - it's about King Henry VIII and the rest of the Tudor family. Henry VIII is best known for all of his wives and so the emphasis is definitely on the budoir, but there is also a fair amount of political intrigue thrown in. I love Historical Fiction, so this was worth watching for me. It sparked an interest in learning a little more about some of the characters and Jonathan Rhys Meyers was a very sexy King Henry (Meyers is an Irishman, but I don't think he's a traveler).

A show I sampled and didn't care for on Showtime was "Meadowlands". It was a dark and spooky show about a community of people who are all in witness protection. I think it wanted to be like "Twin Peaks" or something of that ilk, but it just didn't work for me.

Another show that I didn't care for this summer that has now been cancelled is "John from Cincinnati" on HBO. It was written by David Milch, whose done fantastic stuff like Deadwood and NYPD Blue, but this one just didn't click with me. It was about a family of surfers and this stranger who comes into their life. Lots and lots of wackiness ensues and it was all just too weird and nonsensical but still boring for my tastes.

One last show I tried this summer and didn't like was "The Starter Wife" on USA Network. Debra Messing played the newly separated wife of a Hollywood producer who's trying to start all over alone. The writing was just awful.

New shows that I did like and would recommend are:

Damages on FX. Glenn Close plays an attorney who hires a fresh young associate played by Rose Byrne. Their big case is a shareholders lawsuit against a rich businessman played by Ted Danson. I like Glenn Close and Ted Danson's work in this show where no one is quite who they seem to be. There are all sorts of little twists and turns that keep me coming back to this one, although it's really a dark and depressing view of human nature. I like it, but don't love it.

Mad Men on A&E is also a little dark and sad. It's set in 1960 in the world of advertising. That's a period of American History where things were starting to change in a huge way. The production values are fantastic - the costumes are gorgeous, the sets are beautiful and everything is shot like a little movie. It's fun to see little differences in the way things used to be - like the smoking of course. The characters in this show are also deeply conflicted and I'm still interested in seeing what will happen next. Another one that I like, but don't love.

A show that I do love is Flight of the Conchords on HBO. It's about a novelty song duo from New Zealand and they're sad little lives in New York. They are truly fish out of water and they express themselves through their hilarious folk songs. This is really an odd show, but I think it's really, really funny and always look forward to each episode.

Burn Notice on USA Network is another show that I really like. It's about a CIA agent who has been "burned" - basically kicked out of the agency. Since being a spy is pretty much your entire life, when you're burned, you don't have much left. He's dumped in his home town of Miami to contend with his ex-girlfriend, who is an ex-IRA member and rather fond of explosives, his mother who he has a conflicted relationship with and another ex-agent who just wants to drink and sleep around and have fun, but is willing to help out every now and again. It's a fun summer show. It fits in well with the other USA shows I've been watching this summer - Monk and Psych.

The other new show I've watched this summer is one that I actually can't stand, so don't ask me why I've watched it. It's called The Lot and is on Fox. I don't generally like reality tv, but there are a couple of shows that I do watch. Since this was basically set up like American Idol (which I sometimes watch) except in the world of film, I decided to check it out. The films they made were not very good or fun to watch. However, there was one guy that I did think was pretty talented and one guy from Minneapolis, so I sort of kept watching just to see how they would do. They've both been eliminated now, but all that's left is the final show to see who wins, so I figure why not just finish it off. I don't think they'll renew the show next year, but if they do, don't waste your time.

The other reality show that I watch in the summer that I'm totally and completely embarrassed to admit to is "Big Brother". This is the 8th year it's been on and every single year I say it's a horrible show and I'm not going to watch it and every year I get sucked in again. This is the worst year ever, though, so this year I really mean it. I'm already sucked in and want to know who is going to win, so I'm going to finish up this year, but I really mean it. Next year I'm not watching!

I watched the second and last season of Hex on BBC America and it's also sort of a guilty pleasure. It's about a boarding school in England - one of the students is the son of Satan and another one is an angel sent to kill him and save humanity. Yes, it is as silly as it sounds. Some of these shows I would never give a second look during the regular tv season.

The other returning shows I've been watching are "The Closer" on TNT and Entourage and Big Love on HBO. This may be the best season of The Closer ever. I'm really enjoying it.