Vacation Time

Hi Readers,

I'll be out of town for a week and a bit so I leave you in the capable hands of Rachael, managing editor ad interim.

See you next week and happy 4th of July to our American readers (and belated happy Canada day to the Canucks).

Love,
Kelly

PS: In my absence be sure to tune in to Big Brother's season premiere, Wes' big Bachelorette confession episode, the final pre-top ten week of the SYTYCD and this week's offerings of Valentine, Better off Ted, Samantha Who, Kings, Eli Stone and Merlin.

Scrubs Says Goodbye

The series finale of the Scrubs we know aired on May 6th but I just got around to watching it tonight. I say "the Scrubs we know" because the show will technically be returning in the fall but executive producer Bill Lawrence has urged viewers to see the new season as a different entity altogether. Featuring only a few members of the current cast (the most notable absence being lead actor and narrator Zach Braff), the new chapter of Scrubs will abandon it's home hospital in favour of a med school setting. So, in more ways than one, the finale I saw tonight was the end of Scrubs, in its current incarnation.

The episode (a two parter entitled "My Finale") was a perfect series ending (in keeping with the great finale formula that I talked about in "The OC in My Opinion" and "Spin City: in memory of Mike", both available in the Featured Posts section). It celebrated JD's last day at Sacred Heart before he moves to another hospital to be closer to his son Sam.

Each character got their curtain call moment: including a funny and character appropriate goodbye from the Janitor, a touching moment between JD and Carla, a small but nice goodbye for Dr. Kelso, a sweet but perhaps a little scripty pro-JD rant from Dr. Cox (his hurtful rant at the end of part 1 was more affecting in my opinion), appropriately undramatic farewells from Elliot and Turk (who are the two character that were the most prominently rooted in JD's life outside the hospital) and a beautiful reappearance by many of the 8 season series' most memorable guest stars in a fantasy sequence very true to the show's fantastical tone.

The final sequence in which JD imagines his future the way he wants it to be was really quite touching if you looked at it the right way. It would be easy to write off the scene (in which JD watches his future on a makeshift movie screen) as cheesy and dumb, but a real fan of the show will recognize it as a perfect JD moment. As a character he's always been cheesy and day-dreamy, and thus the show has been too. In the character's final moment, what's more appropriate than embracing those very qualities and giving the audience a feeling of hope in a happy ending for the character (an ending where he marries Elliot, they have a baby, he gets together with Turk's family and Dr. Cox's family for Christmas and finally gets his hug, and Sam Dorian and Izzie Turk get engaged, making JD and Turk family finally).

The ending was sweet, paying tribute to the 8 seasons that came before and sending off the leaving characters in the right direction.

Now it's time to get excited for next season's Scrubs 2.0: Med School, (clearly not the actual title).

The First Cut That Really Hurt

Tonight's So You Think You Can Dance results show marked the first painful cut of the year. Sure I was sad to see Ashley go a couple weeks ago (she was too good to go out second) but no one I was really invested in bit the dust until tonight.

I saw it coming. This was Vitolio's third trip to the bottom 3, the judges never saw in him what I saw and with the surprising inclusion of Jeanine and Phillip in the bottom couples instead of the vulnerable Caitlin and Jason, I knew that it was Vitolio who'd be leaving.

Still, after another brilliant solo that I thought lived up to everything Vitolio's carriage promised (I never know what Nigel's talking about), it was sad to see a favourite leave for the first time this season.

A lovely dancer and a lovelier personality, Vitolio was the good-guy surprise of the season. He was goofy and sweet and emotional and endearingly awkward at times though he looked like he'd be none of those things- I just loved him.

Karla (a dancer I never cared much for) was the other elimination of the evening.

With Vitolio gone, it's time to focus attention on my favourite dancers still in the competition.

The are (in order):
Jeanine
Phillip

Evan

Caitlin

and Ade

Dillon Highschool Bids Farewell to 3 More Graduates

One of the greatest things about Friday Night Lights is its ability to evolve with its characters instead of artificially holding on to them. Last season saw the departures of Jason Street (Scott Porter) and Smash Williams (Gaius Charles) from the town of Dillon. Both boys had graduated highschool and were ready to leave their small town behind. Unafraid of losing popular central characters, the folks at Friday Night Lights wrote beautiful farewell arcs for both men then calmly bid adieu.

This season will see recent graduates Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki), Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly) and Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) leave Dillon behind as well. All three actors will be returning for multi-episode arcs that close out their stories before their characters move on.

Will the show be the same without the characters we've grown to love? No, but that's sort of the point. Producers are counting on the anchoring power of stars Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton to bring viewers back and engage them in the stories of new students. And for the immovable fan who longs for season 1 nostalgia, Taylor Kitsch's Tim Riggins will still be hanging around causing trouble and looking pretty.

Heroes Season Three Review

I waited a couple of days after finishing Heroes to really let that finale sink in and to try and avoid hperbole. But before we dive into my review, let me just say, I am unintentionally ruining Heroes. Every time I write on this blog that I don't want something to happen, it does. For example, (SPOILER ALERT! FOUR CAR ALARM!) when I ended the last post saying that "Adrian Pasdar as Sylar-as-Nathan just isn't enough," I didn't realize I was actually describing the big twist ending to the season. Although looking back on it now, I should have.

I said before that I thought the episode "1961" was like a class in what's bad about Heroes. It felt true then. But after watching the season finale, "An Invisible Thread" is actually everything that's wrong with the show. If you had asked me, even halfway through that episode, if I was going to watch Season Four when it started up again this Fall, I would have answered with a resounding "YES!" Heroes, for all its faults, was an enjoyable show, and as long as that continued I didn't see any reason to give up on watching Zachary Quinto, Adrian Pasdar and Milo Ventimiglia exploited for their hotness on a show that squanders their talents.

But... then the finale happened. And while I'm still not ready to completely give up on Heroes, I'm starting to understand better why all of us did in the first place.

The finale supposedly wrapped up all the craziness that's led us to this point, from Sylar's near-God-status and identity crisis, to Nathan's quest for redemption, to Angela and Noah Bennet realizing that The Company, for all its faults, was actually doing a neccessary job (plus a lot of other stuff, including Hiro and Ando and Claire doing things... but none of that is super important).

About halfway through the episode, I reached a gulp worthy conclusion. The show simply couldn't continue as it had been, with Sylar playing villain but still being the most compelling part of the show, and it also couldn't turn Sylar into a good guy again. He'd done way too much bad by this point and he was way too in love with his own evil for redemption (for the past few episodes, Sylar's been joy incarnate in his villainy. Torturing Claire by ookily hitting on her? Creepy, yes, but villainy at it's most villanous). Although I actually enjoyed "I Am Sylar" (the season's penultimate episode, in which Sylar uses his brand new morphing ability to change, Psycho style, between his mother and hisself in a quest to maintain his identity), it was becoming increasingly obvious that Sylar's power was getting too extreme for his own good. Now he not only can't die normally, he couldn't even be killed using the one proven method for Claire-extermination: stabbing in the back of the brain stem.

This has always been a problem on Heroes, and in superhero stories in general. You can't let your hero (or villain) have infinite power; it eliminates the tension. If your hero can't be beat (or your villain can't lose) then there's no question. It's why Superman has kryptonite, Green Lantern has the color yellow --> in fact, I'm willing to bet it's why Hiro and Peter (the only two characters close to Sylar in terms of power) lost their abilities this season, only to regain them in a lesser form (Peter can now only hold on to one power at a time, and Hiro can pause time but not fold space). But Sylar? Why, the hunger just kept driving him forward to acquire new powers all the time. It seemed that he had no choice but to commit some identity saving suicide (or power purge) at episode's end, since such an unstoppable force of evil clearly couldn't be allowed to continue to exist.

MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR SPOILER ALERT

Or... the show could take a page from Dollhouse or the comic Identity Crisis. You see, at episode's end, Nathan dies, right before he can start undoing all the damage he did (damage which apparently only Nathan can undo, by flying around like Superman). And so Angela Petrelli and Noah Bennet, already set to start up The Company again, prove Noah's famous line, "I'm comfortable with morally grey" and force Matt Parkman to mindrape Sylar and implant Nathan's memories. They then wake up Nathan/Sylar and set him down the path of righteousness.

There are many, many things wrong with this, but I'll try to hit the big ones:

1) Mindrape = wrong. Very wrong.
2) Mindrape= rarely permanent.
3) It doesn't really seem necessary. Sure Nathan would be helpful in the overall fight to undo all the bad he did, but he's not the only one who can do it.
3) Noah's argument "if you don't do this, Nathan will have really died," brings up a whole bag of philosophical issues that this show has nearly the inclination nor the ability to address. And if you're going to deal with heady philosophical issues, don't use it as a cheap excuse to-
4) Keep Sylar around so that you can have Zachary Quinto appear whenever he wants to, but also swing it so that you can have the character exist without the actor. I will be the first to admit that I watch for Sylar first, anything else a far away second, but I would have preferred that character get a proper goodbye death than some lame ass storytelling device.

but most importantly

5) NOAH BENNET SHOULD BE SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT YOU CAN'T KEEP SYLAR ALIVE. Forget everything else. Forget how cheap and lame this is. Forget how wrong it was of the characters, how sick a deformation of their grief, and how unnecessary it is to the plot. It was also such a stupid move on Noah and Angela's part that when Sylar inevitably bubbles up to the surface (since, I don't know, what if Sylar/Nathan gets particularly pissed off one day and realizes that his hands are starting to glow with radiation? Or tries to fly and realizes that he can't because, hello, Sylar never took that damn power?!) I will be happy to see him pull the good ole two fingered brain slicing.

I didn't even get into how annoying it was that they hid the climactic fight between Peter, Nathan and Sylar from us (budget cuts, Heroes? Well then just don't have a climactic fight at all, don't pull that kind of malarkey), or how stupid just the simple fact of Nathan's death was, but this review is already much longer than the episode deserved.

Episode Grade: D
Season Grade: B- (Honestly, this should probably be lower, but I just can't bring myself to grade down something that amused me so much)

Does This Sound Like A Good Idea?

CBS, the network that enjoys the fruits of very little labour every summer with their guilty pleasure reality smash Big Brother, is at it again.

There Goes the Neighborhood premieres Sunday, August 9 at 9pm.

The idea is this:

It's family-friendly Big Brother, basically. In order to win $250,000 (half the BB prize money), 8 families in suburbia will compete each week against their neighbours to remain in the competition and win luxury prizes. In each of the 7 episodes of the competition, one family will be eliminated until only one is left standing.

But here's the catch: the entire neighbourhood is surrounded by a 20 foot wall. They won't have access to the outside world, no Internet, no phones, no nothing. The family members will have to turn to each other for everything from survival to strategy to simple entertainment.

And the whole thing is being hosted by America Idol season 3 finalist Matt Rogers.

CBS and executive producers Mike Fleiss (The Bachelor, High School Reunion) and Jay Bienstock (The Apprentice) swear that it's "truly a social experiment".

What do you think of this newest reality show offering from CBS? post in the comments below.

Casting News

LAW & ORDER: SVU

Jack & Bobby matriarch and wife to My TV favourite director Tommy Schlamme, Christine Lahti will be joining the cast of SVU as a new Assistant District Attorney. The brilliant actress is almost enough to make me actually watch the procedural ("almost" being the key word).

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES

Former Sopranos star and Joey flameout Drea de Matteo will be the newest series regular on Wisteria Lane as the vixen head of a the new italian neighbours. Wil she measure up to the dearly departed Edie Britt?

THE STAGE

It seems that he'll be joining the Broadway revival cast of Lend Me a Tenor (premiering in February) but first, TR Knight might succeed in winning me over for the first time in his career by taking on the incredibly complex role of Leo Frank in Jason Robert Brown's Parade in Los Angeles.

My Bachelorette Breaking Point

That's it! I've finally had enough with Jillian Harris (or, as E!online has dubbed her, "realitart").

The girl is absurd. First of all, I haven't watched a season of The Bachelorette since Trista but are they all really so, how to put this nicely,... tarty? Jillian is as forthcoming with her physical affections as the icky Jason was, though with her I'd argue that it comes from a different place. It seems to me that Jillian is either incredibly full of herself or has no sense of self worth- it's definitely one of those two extremes. In between comments about how she's "such a good person", "incredibly honest" and "so hard working and motivated", Jillian asks constant questions like "am I your type" and "are you really here for me"? Add that to her inability to distinguish who to put her trust in and her tendency to throw the guys who really care about her out the window and it's clear that Ms. Harris' self confidence is definitely out of whack (whether it's because she thinks she's too good for the good guys or that she doesn't deserve them, either way, it's not healthy).

After this episode, I've finally come to recognize something that's been brewing for many weeks now- I severely dislike this girl. I think she's selfish yet pretends not to be, I think she's got bad taste, poor judgement and is, for lack of a better word, a "realitart".

That said, of the 4 guys she has left, I'm quite fond of two and have a definite TV crush on the other (I've decided to pretend as though Wes doesn't exist, it'll be better that way).

In tonight's episode, Jake (who was cut last week) reappeared to valiantly warn Jillian about the girlfriend that everyone knows he who shall not be named has (he even named her, it's Laurel). And though I appreciate that he was "doing the right thing", I think perhaps Jake took his hero complex a bit too far this week, coming off a bit cartoonish in the process. And after 5 hometown dates in which Jillian was grilled uncomfortably by Kiptyn's mom, ate dinner with every female relative Wes has and celebrated Reid's 30th birthday with his family, the boring Jesse was sent home alongside my beloved Michael (who not only had the best family but confessed that he must have really loved "the girl" in his heartbreaking exit interview). But, TWIST TIME, Ed came back! A favourite of mine who was never given quite enough screen time to fully steal my heart, Ed left a couple weeks ago under threat of losing his job. This week, he turned up on Jillian's doorstep asking for her to take him back (no mention of what happened with his job). Naturally, she invited him to the rose ceremony to heighten the tension. But then she ultimately gave him the rose; that makes a final 4 of Reid, Kiptyn, Ed and he who shall not be named.

I like Kiptyn, I always have. His family, though a little intense, was sweet and smart and funny and down to earth. They drink fancy wine and covet their lasagna recipe and sing the blues (literally), I love them. And Kiptyn has always had fantastic chemistry with Jillian, though the sound of his voice drives me a little crazy.

I also like Reid. I barely knew who he was until last week but he's incredibly cute in his glasses, his dynamic with his family is wonderful, he's delightfully neurotic and he completely won me over when he powwowed with the train employees when left alone during last week's group date. How sweet is it that he had a coffee with the crew and asked their advice on date attire!

But, of the remaining guys, I'd choose Ed. Sure he left, but it was mighty brave to come back (and by the way, in this economy it's just plain stupid to leave your job for a hypothetical relationship on a reality show, of course he left!). He's also the cutest of the lot (though that's strictly in my opinion), is remarkably smart and has a low key sweetness to him that I find incredibly endearing. I'd pick him, that's all I'm saying (which means that she probably won't, because she's a little nuts).

IN OTHER BACHELORETTE NEWS:

Fan (and My TV) favourite from last season's The Bachelor (and Dancing with the Stars finalist) Melissa Rycroft is finally engaged (to someone who's not Jason Mesnick, thank god). Tye Strickland, an old friend of Rycroft who became more than a friend after Mesnick dumped her on national TV, proposed on Friday and she accepted.

In other Rycroft news, Melissa is now a Good Morning America special correspondent for the summer- way to spot a good thing when you see one ABC, that's 3 shows Ms. Rycroft has lit up with her hundred watt smile.

Absurd Moment of the Week

The enthusiastic disco number at the end of Valentine; complete with killer dance moves, obvious voice dubbing, quite a bit of swagger and a sprinkling of fairy dust!

Love Survives... for a little while

I don't know how I managed to miss such crucial information but somehow I didn't know that my favourite early cancellation of the season was making a reappearance on TV this summer.

So imagine my surprise and delight to find that a new episode of Valentine had appeared on my PVR.

Starting last night (June 28th), The CW has started airing the final 4 episodes of the schmaltzy lovefest that was once my favourite new show of the fall.

Starring the psycho lady from Dexter, Taylor Townsend and that guy that's in everything, Valentine is an unremarkable show that mysteriously manages to effect one's mood more thoroughly than most.

With Valentine joining the lineup of the dearly departed being briefly resurrected for a couple weeks in the sun, I've got to say that this year's summer TV might just be some of the best there's been in years (Valentine, Pushing Daisies, Kings, Eli Stone, Samantha Who, Better Off Ted... it's a bittersweet farewell tour).

Catch Valentine on Sundays at 7pm on The CW.

A Post Privileged Post

After you've recovered from the incredibly sad (read: ridiculous, wrong and simply unfair) cancellation of Privileged, don't despair that you may never see your favourite cast members again.

It seems that the adorable Joanna Garcia (Privileged's leading lady) will be heading to the upper east side to romance one Mr. Nate Archibald. Her 4 episode Gossip Girl arc will kick off in the season premiere, giving us all even more incentive to watch.

Not a guest stint to be missed.

Some Happier News

Ana Ortiz, who plays Betty's sister Hilda on ABC's Ugly Betty, gave birth to her first child, a baby girl named Paloma Louise Lebenzon, on Saturday afternoon.

Ortiz and her husband Noah Lebenzon married in June 2007 in Puerto Rico.

What a Crappy Week: goodbye to another familiar face

After the deaths of the prince of late night (Ed McMahon), the queen of the 70s (Farrah Fawcett) and the king of pop (Michael Jackson) earlier this week, you can now add the king of pitchmen Billy Mays to the tragic list.

The familiar booming voice of Billy Mays has been convincing television viewers to buy products like Oxy Clean and Mighty Putty since 1993. With his smiling bearded face and signature thumbs up, Mays was considered the best salesman around.

He was found dead in his Florida home this morning, June 28 2009.

His documentary series Pitchmen is currently airing on the Discovery Channel at 10pm on Wednesdays.

Psych!

This week, thanks to my parents' desire to watch pretty much every television show imaginable*, I stumbled upon the USA television show Psych. Psych follows the exploits of Shawn Spencer, who pretends to be a psychic but who is in fact a daddy-issued slacker with a keen sense of observation. He teams up with Gus (his best friend whose main power is his "super sniffer"), and together they form the fake psychic, real detective agency Psych, and work with law enforcement to solve crimes. Law enforcement doesn't exactly love being grouped with a psychic, but they (to varying degrees) tolerate and even enjoy their antics.

Psych's a procedural crime drama, and so in a lot of ways it's interchangeable with other "someone from outside the force teams up with the police to solve crazy, wacky crimes" shows (see also: Bones, The Mentalist, Castle, Monk...). But it's a very enjoyable hour long television show that, especially during the summer, is more than worth the minimal effort it requires from its viewers. Mostly, this is thanks to James Roday as Shawn and Dule Hill as Gus. Their adorable, wacky, odd-couple chemistry and fast paced, witty banter makes the show worth watching. Plus, they dress up in funny outfits and Shawn hits on everything that moves.

So if you're bored this summer, but not looking to get into something heavy, check out the light, airy, cute USA hit Psych (a couple of season 3 episodes are currently up on Hulu, and normally I'd say that you can't just skip to Season Three of a show, but one of the great things about a show like Psych is that it's not really much of a problem. I went from Season one to Season Three and honestly couldn't have told you, except for Maggie Lawson's hair cut, the difference). It's not the type of show that requires you to dig deep into themes and motifs, but it does provide endless quotable material and engaging characters and easy, enjoyable giggles.

* Seriously. They just finished October Road.

Oh and also, James Roday's vocal inflections and facial mannerisms are freakishly similar to Zach Braff's. Early Zach Braff. Which makes him adorable.

Aaron Paul: double duty

Easily my favourite thing about AMC's edgy and critically adored series Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul as scruffy drug dealer Jesse Pinkman is a study in detailed character acting. Everything from his ever-roving bloodshot eyes to his restless hands to his frantic speech patterns make Jesse come to life as the palpably conflicted and complicated character that he is.

But what's interesting about Jesse, Paul's most revered role to date, is that the actor so disappears into him that he is never recognized as that character. Paul says that while walking down the street, if he's noticed at all, he's recognized for his other (and much less lauded) current TV role, as Scott on Big Love.

The well-kept and low key actor much more closely resembles Sarah Henrikson (Amanda Seyfried)'s sweet and conservative fiancee than the bumbling meth head he plays so convincingly on Breaking Bad.

On Big Love, Paul plays the unexpectedly controversial Scott with amazing subtlety. It's hard to believe that one actor can embody two such opposite characters so effectively, but Paul does it with finesse, making both the intense Mormon and the misguided druggie into incredibly relatable and lovable characters. Starring opposite the incandescent Amanda Seyfried on Big Love and the famously genius Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul somehow manages to steal both shows on a regular basis.

It's impressive to play one multi-faceted TV character with praise-worthy brilliance, it's absurd to play two at once.