Prefrontal Globe*

*This pun title makes absolutely no sense. I was in a hurry!

The Golden Globe nominations were announced today! After last year’s writer’s strike which forced the ceremony to be cancelled (we had to listen to that mental deficient Billy Bush announce the winners on Access Hollywood), I’ve been going through awards withdrawal and am counting down the days until the season starts again. Here are my thoughts and predictions for the TV categories:

Best Drama
Dexter
House
In Treatment
Mad Men
True Blood

I’ve only seen two of these (True Blood and In Treatment have yet to hit DVD and I am, sadly, HBO-less) but Mad Men most definitely should and will win since they won last year and they won the Best Drama Emmy in September. They’re the new Sopranos, dominating every award show!

Best Comedy
30 Rock
Californication
Entourage
The Office
Weeds

So difficult to choose! 30 Rock will most likely nab this and it would be well-deserved, but Weeds had such an amazing fourth season this past summer—one that completely changed the series around but actually made it better.

Best Actor in a Drama
Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Hugh Laurie, House
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, The Tudors

Don Draper come on down! He deserves this award for the second year in a row because no one else is able to make us love and fear his character like he does (and when you’re going up against a serial killer and Henry VIII, that’s really saying something!)

Best Actress in a Drama
Sally Field, Brothers and Sisters
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: SVU
January Jones, Mad Men
Anna Paquin, True Blood
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

OK, is Mariska Hargitay really that good or is it just that people like saying her name? As anyone who follows this blog knows (all none of you!), January Jones has been a topic of much discussion between Sonia and I, so I take this nomination (and her expected win) to be a personal victory.

Best Actor in a Comdy
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
Kevin Connolly, Entourage
David Duchovny, Californication
Tony Shalhoub, Monk

When David Duchovny won this award last year, it was one of the biggest WTF moments since the infamous Herbie Hancock Grammy debacle this past February, but him winning might be worth it this year to see if he talks about his stint in rehab for sex addiction. Kudos to the HFPA for finally recognizing someone besides Jeremy Piven on Entourage (he still got a supporting nod, though) but it comes too late as that show has really lost its luster. It’s a battle between Alec and Steve, and Alec should prove victorious. And who knew Monk was still on?!

Best Actress in a Comedy
Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Debra Messing, The Starter Wife
Mary Louise-Parker, Weeds

Again, the 30 Rock vs. Weeds war wages on. They’re the two best comedies on TV right now with the two best leading ladies on TV right now. Even I can’t decide! I’m hoping for Mary-Louise just because Tina won over her last year, but Tina will be doubly hard to beat now that 2008 was The Year of the Fey.

(I ignored the mini-series and made-for-TV-movie categories because no one watches those and I use those for snack/bathroom breaks during the awards show broadcast.)

--Ray

"Barbara Walters is easily fascinated." --Seth Meyers

This week, Barbara Walters counted down her list of the ten most fascinating people of 2008 in a special confusingly titled Barbara Walters Counts Down the 10 Most Fascinating People of 2008.

10. Will Smith. “If I wanted to be the president, yes, I could.” Don’t you have to at least go to college to be the president? Damn you, George W., for helping to create the assumption that anyone can be president!

9. Michael Phelps. Who knew the Phelpster had ADHD? Answer: Anyone who witnessed his cue-card reading skills when he hosted SNL.

8. Miley Cyrus. Baba called Miley’s Vanity Fair spread “R-rated.” This coming from the woman who just wrote an autobiography about how many dudes she banged back in the ‘40s.

7. Tina Fey. Yeah, we don’t say negative things about her.

6. Rush Limbaugh. “What the rehab process taught me was that I’m not afraid of who I am.” Well, the orderlies who had to hold you down during the OxyContin withdrawal beg to differ.

5. The Pregnant Man. “I used my female reproductive organs to become a father.” Seriously, Barbara? Did the original choice for the #5 spot back out at the last minute? And how pissed do you think Rush is that he got beat by him/her?

4. Frank Langella. Barbara told us that to prepare to play the role of Nixon, Frank “started by reviewing tapes of Richard Nixon—including MY OWN 1968 interview.” Leave it to her to take up poor Frank’s segment by capitalizing on the opportunity to show a clip of herself 30 years younger.

3. Sarah Palin. Because she was the only person on the list who didn’t grant Baba an interview (could it have been the daily tough-lashing she gave Sarah on The View?), all we got was a g-less (goin’, doin’, seein’, maverickin’) montage of Palin’s highs and lows (but especially lows) during the brief two months she was famous.

2. Tom Cruise. Wasn’t 2008 the year we kept trying to forget Tom Cruise’s 2005-2007 Tour o’ Lunacy rather than be fascinated by him? You do have to give Tom credit though, he’s the only person who can become more fascinating by simply appearing less in public and keeping his mouth shut.

1. Barack Obama. Thank God he showed up for his interview or the Pregnant Man might’ve been given this spot.

--Ray

"Circus" Act

Last night, MTV’s “Night O’ Britney” kicked off with an awkward, hour-long, faux-live pre-show before the premiere of her documentary Britney: For the Record. Host Damien Fahey vamped his way through slow interstitials in which he and Brit, an alarming and freshly-minted milquetoast, reviewed her best moments on MTV from the past decade—at one point we actually watched present-day Britney looking back at a clip of 2001 Britney looking back at a clip of 14-year-old Britney. What is this, a David Lynch film?! Then, Damien would ask her a pointed question like, “What is it like looking back through all these moments?” But then, he’d always insert a yes-or-no question immediately, like, “Does it feel good to see what you’ve accomplished?” This allowed her to evade having to formulate any real response and to provide purely monosyllabic answers. Seriously, through the entire hour, Britney must’ve uttered no more than 25 words, 20 of which were “Yeah.”

As for the actual documentary, we have to keep in mind that For the Record was produced by her manager meaning it could be a real documentary or it could be a 90-minute commercial devised by her handlers to assure us that she’s OK and that we should all pick up her new album Circus. MTV doesn’t exactly have a history of journalistic integrity so we’ll never really know if Britney’s words are her own or if this is just a glossy, contrived farce through which a still-nutso Britney was coached. But either way, I’m not going to even try to pretend like I wasn’t completely under the Britney spell by the brilliantly-edited ending in which clips of her reaffirming her new-found strength were cut against a shot of her in front of a giant wall of raining sparks while Phillip Glass-esque orchestral music swelled to an epic climax. But even without all the bells and whistles, there is still something to be said about how incredibly compelling this woman is to watch—so much more so than any of the morons that have poisoned our television airwaves over this past decade with their stupid reality shows. Why is it that while I can’t take 3 seconds of Living Lohan or Keeping Up with the Kardashians, I will sit and watch Britney play a game on her cell phone with an unending supply of rapture and intrigue? I got the feeling that this is the first time she has ever been completely honest with us, but I still can’t decide whether this change is borne out of her decision or because her people knew the jig is finally up. (Once CNN has aired a live helicopter feed of a parade of ambulances carrying you to the dreaded Cedars-Sinai hospital, any façade of normalcy has been eradicated.)

During the “post-show” (which actually turned out to be yet another sneak peak at The City which is a spin-off of The Hills which is a spin-off of Laguna Beach which was a rip-off of The O.C.), after we’d just watched 90 straight minutes of Britney pour her heart out, Damien asked her how she felt now that she had supposedly set the record straight. Her response? “Good.” Is this our new Britney? One so attacked and shamed by the media that all the endearing, down-home things she used to say while chomping a piece of her trademark bubble gum are gone forever? In one of the songs on her new CD that comes out tomorrow (sorry, I just can’t bring myself to say drops), she says, “My face like a mannequin.” We’ve seen young, naïve Britney and crazy, bald Britney. Welcome to Britney 3.0.

--Ray

"Daisies" Wilted; "Money" Spent

Word has just leaked that two of our favorite sophomore ABC series—Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money—have been cancelled! (Also cancelled was Eli Stone, but no one gives a crap about that.) Aside from my excitement over getting to make lame cancellation puns for the title of this blog entry, I am not happy! See, this is what happens when you campaign so hard to keep other great-but-ratings-challenged shows on the air (30 Rock, we’re talking about you with Tina Fey’s recent publicity bonanza) that you forget about the other smaller shows that don’t have the luck of having their star resemble a Podunk, Alaskan vice-presidential candidate. While both shows will be permitted to complete a 13-episode season, this may leave huge unanswered questions hanging in the balance. Will Ned (Lee Pace) and Chuck (Anna Friel) ever find a way to be happy despite their inability to touch? And will Nick (Peter Krause) ever find out the circumstances of his father’s death and whether or not the Darlings were involved?

What makes this decision even harder to swallow is that these two shows bookend Private Practice on ABC’s Wednesday night schedule. Here are the basics of a Private Practice episode:

1. Couple comes to the Oceanside Wellness Group with a beyond-ridiculous fertility request (e.g. “Can you fertilize my eggs with iguana sperm?”; “Can you to make one of my twins retarded in utero so the other twin can use him for organ harvesting later in life?").
2. Dr. Addison Montgomery refuses on the grounds of medical ethics.
3. Dr. Addison Montgomery decides at the last minute she will perform the procedure because, after all, who is she to tell people what to do?

(Why hasn’t the Medical Board of California revoked this broad’s license yet?!)

Enjoy America! This is the kind of crap you like, apparently!

--Ray

P.S.- Sorry I violently forced you to watch these two shows on DVD, Sonia! I really thought they were going to catch on!

Fave 5 - Drama

I’ve finally compiled my top 5 TV dramas! Remember, for a self-professed TV shut-in, picking these was a harder decision for me than Meryl Streep had in Sophie’s Choice.

5. Gossip Girl (The CW) As a dramedy that satirizes the shameless rich and voyeuristic poor (AKA us!) equally, Gossip Girl recognizes the exploits of a few Upper East Side 17-year-olds and their 24-year-old parents as outlandish (their maximalist wardrobes are just as hyperbolic as their personalities—Chuck Bass, I’m talking about you!) but its website-within-a-show concept ingeniously throws the consumerist blame back on us, the audience, the main culprit in this TMZ/Perez Hilton/Us Weekly world where we’re all perpetually trying to move on up to that deluxe apartment (with a Central Park view) in the sky. In a brilliant scene from season one, blue-blooded Blair daunts the bourgeois (and ridiculously underage) Jenny with a martini. Jenny attempts to save face by claiming she doesn’t like vodka. “Well that’s nice, because this is gin, as it should be,” Blair snaps back. “Either swallow that, or swipe your MetroCard back home.” No other rich-kid soap (and there have been thousands) so vividly evokes the great divide of old money versus new money—gin versus vodka—with such cruel yet stylized panache. (Season 2 currently airing)

4. Friday Night Lights (NBC/The 101) While we hate this show right now for signing a deal with DirecTV to air its third season on a satellite channel no one has (it’ll run on NBC later), we have to rate FNL slightly above Gossip Girl just because I’m pretty sure it’s the first teen show ever to not only be set somewhere outside of New York or LA (ew!), but to actually feature small-town, low-income kids (gross!) who don’t wear haute couture to homeroom (oh, the horror!) and don’t look like they just fell out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. (Actually, aside from Landry, they’re all pretty gorgeous.) Tim Riggins’s white trash brother Billy said it best in the first few minutes of the pilot: “This is real life, not Maxim magazine.” Not that we’re decrying the world of Gossip Girl in which it’s feasible for a 16-year-old to own and operate a burlesque club, instead we’re celebrating these two, opposing portrayals of fantasy and reality, the latter of which FNL does to a T. (Season 3 currently airing on The 101, will air on NBC in 2009)

3. Dexter (Showtime) Throwing the audience’s sympathies on the side of a murderer is nothing new. Hitchcock did it decades ago. But being able to keep your audience in a constant state of Hitchcockian suspense every minute of every episode of a 12-part, hour-long series that’s now in its third season sure is. In this TV landscape, where we’re plagued with 8 CSIs, 12 Law & Orders, and countless other inane, basic cable cop shows, Dexter brilliantly subverts the done-to-death cops-versus-bad guys formula by combining cop and bad guy into one with our titular hero/villain—a forensics specialist who moonlights as a vigilante serial killer. Jennifer Carpenter as Dexter’s adoptive sister Debra is our absolute favorite bad-ass, post-post-feminist cop who could wipe the floor with that whiny southern belle from The Closer! (Season 3 currently airing).

2. Skins (E4/BBC America) It’s just occurred to me that this is the third show on my list about teenagers and how, perhaps, as someone who hasn’t been a teen for 4 years, I should consider watching more adult-oriented shows. But why would I do that when I can watch these Bristolian badasses engage in shocking levels of substance abuse, pan-sexual intercourse, and everything else American TV kids can’t do because of the pesky FCC? But to say this show is just about sex, drugs, and bad, European techno music would be to completely ignore its incredible heart. The Skins characters aren’t your typical disaffected youth—rather they’re extremely affected by parents who have failed them and teachers who (in Chris’s case) sleep with them. (Season 2 currently airing on BBC America, Season 3 starts on E4 in 2009)

1. Mad Men (AMC) I know, I know, Mad Men is topping every list these days. It’s just as much of a cliché now to refer to it as the greatest show on TV as it was to say the same about The Sopranos for the better part of this decade. But there never was a show more deserving of the abdicated throne of that title than this one—Mad Men’s creator Matthew Weiner actually wrote 12 episodes of The Sopranos. The genius of MM lies in its ability to subtlety yet effectively comment on basically every important aspect of American culture and how it has changed (or hasn’t changed) in the second half of the twentieth century; family values, capitalism, religion, women’s rights, civil rights, class stratification, politics, and more are discussed via the concept of the advertiser marketing values to the masses. We as viewers are left to wonder how authentic the American identity actually is if so many of our thoughts and opinions are shaped by men in suits smoking cigarettes and munching sandwiches planning out exactly how we’re going to feel about all these issues. Mad Men asks us, Is America just one big commercial? Discuss! (Season 3 starts in 2009)

Honorable mention: Breaking Bad (AMC), Big Love (HBO), Lost (ABC)

Dishonorable mention: 24 (FOX) Season six—also known as the season during which even the die-hard fans stopped watching—was apparently (yeah, I was one of those who ditched!) so bad that even the writers apologized for it and promised to do better next time. After completely sitting out 2008 because of the writer’s strike, 24 will be back this Sunday with a 2-hour TV movie (24: Redemption) that eschews the trademark countdown clock and fills us in on what Jack has been up to lately. (Plus, Jack will be in Africa meaning we might get to see him go toe-to-toe with an angry gazelle!) Then a new and (hopefully) improved season 7 will start in January.

--Ray

Credit Crisis

In my never-ending attempt to conceitedly rate everything, I got to thinking: what are the best and worst TV opening credit sequences out there right now?

Worst: The L Word



The opening of this long-running Showtime series features an interpolation of The Sound of Music’s “My Favorite Things” by New York City alt-rock band Betty, an inane, nerve-grating composition accompanied by visuals that look like something a student in a night computer class at a community college made on PowerPoint in about 3 hours. It could also be one of those rage-inducing “fan clips” you always see on YouTube in which some 14-year-old shut-in from a single-parent home has set images of Star Wars characters up against his own rewritten version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The theme song lyrics (sample: “Women who long, love, lust/Women who give” WHAT?!) are about as poetic as the nutrition facts on the side of a cereal box. Rodgers and Hammerstein are rolling over in their graves!


Best: Mad Men



As a silhouetted businessman’s office begins to collapse around him and we see him plunge from the top of a building, we suddenly realize this image has been forever emblazoned on our collective national consciousness since 9/11—the destruction of the Manhattan skyscraper—the temple of capitalism and consumerism—that capped off the 20th century, the century in which America became the most powerful financial nation on the planet. It’s no coincidence those skyscrapers are adorned with kitschy, Saul Bass-inspired, period advertisements that celebrate/mock the ultra-American values of youth and vitality. Then there’s the ominous score which sounds like a riff on Bernard Hermann’s Psycho theme. These credits, created over a year ago, incredibly and anachronistically forecasted the new, post-bailout America in which corporate greed and glamour—exactly the kind Don Draper and his cronies proudly practice in this AMC show—have led to the collapse of our financial institutions and a repositioning of our values, an America in which “CEO” has become a pejorative. If only Don could see us now!

--Ray

Sterling-Spoofer

You gotta love SNL’s Mad Men skit with Jon Hamm as host.



Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) and Roger (John Slattery) stopped by to help out but the star of the goof was Bill Hader’s priceless impression of Salvatore (AKA “gay guy”). “Who? Meeee?!”

Speaking of which, how brill was Sunday night’s finale?! It seems like we’re getting one shock per finale: last year it was Peggy’s surprise baby delivery (OK, I admit, I was basically the only one who didn’t call that) and this year it was Betty’s naughty bar backroom tryst with… Bar Backroom Tryst Guy! Sonia thinks Betty, in an effort to procure an abortion, will claim her baby is actually BBTG’s but I think it was just a physical statement of sexual autonomy (albeit a secret one) to match Don’s philandering. Remember last season when Don yelled at her for wearing a skimpy bikini at a country club fashion show? I’d be willing to bet an admonition like that would earn him a big middle finger from our new, repression-free heroine.

Is it time for season 3 yet?

--Ray

Bimbo Limbo

Chuck, Episode: Chuck Versus the Cougars

Trend alert!

Is primetime network television the new post-jail/rehab probation/limbo for Hollywood’s bad girls?

All of our favorite cocaine-snortin’, Red Bull-vodka-swillin’ celebutantes seem to have something else in common besides having shots of their hoo-has plastered all over the net.

First, the one and only (It’s) Britney (, Bitch!) Spears decided a bit part (or should we say, Brit part? ZING!) as a secretary on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother in March was the perfect way to help her forget that minor mental breakdown/conservatorship that cost her her kids and her record for never having an album debut lower than #1. (She reprised her role in another episode in May.)

Then in April, Paris Hilton celebrated being sprung from her 22-day stint in jail last year by playing the only role she can successfully play: herself, in an episode of My Name is Earl.

We’ve been enjoying/skeptically observing Lindsay Lohan’s guestrole on Ugly Betty since last year’s minor “Yeah, there was coke in my pocket but they weren’t my pants” snafu.

So it was only a matter of time before the last member of this fatuous foursome showed up on a random network TV show in a random, throwaway role.

Well lo and behold, I’m watching last Monday night’s Chuck (or as I like to call it, Seth Cohen Facsimile) when none other than Nicole Richie, AKA the only heroin addict to ever successfully deliver a non-stillborn child, pops up playing one of Sarah’s old highschool friends who turns out to be a spy.

Jeers to the Chuck writers for not only staging a chick fight to Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” (they already did that in the Charlie’s Angels movie!) but for staging it in a lockeroom shower in which a burst pipe doused Mrs. Joel Madden with water and then for making it seem as if we were supposed to enjoy this. Yeah, because there’s nothing that turns on red-blooded American males quite like a wet Nicole Richie. (She looked like a chihuahua just rescued from a drainage pipe.)

So, is this Hollywood’s way of saying, “Yeah, we don’t really trust in your sobriety enough to bet a multimillion-dollar feature film on it, so we’ll give you 22 to 44 minutes of a moderately popular TV show and if you don’t completely f**k that up, we might let you do a low-budget horror movie or a bad romcom with Matthew McConaughey”? And who’s next? Kirsten Dunst on ER? Amy Winehouse on Mad Men? (Actually, she’s got the right hairdo for that.) Please, make it stop!

--Ray

Waif Keeping

This is Silver. She lives in Beverly Hills, CA where food and clean drinking water are plentiful but, for some reason, she doesn’t seem to have access to them.

For just 70 cents a day*, you can provide Silver with 3 daily meals** (she only eats organic celery and dolphin-safe albacore tuna sushi rolls), clean drinking water ($7-a-bottle Fiji water, room temperature with a crushed up methadrine tablet dissolved in it), and clothing (mid-'90s heroin-chic, size zero Miu Miu sleeveless frocks that highlight jutting clavicles). We here at Feed the Children know pictures like these are difficult to look at and you may want to look away or skip to the next blog entry, but with your help, we can take on global hunger.

--Ray

*Due to the above mentioned sushi dietary restrictions, Feed the Children may require 432 easy payments of 70 cents a day.

**Feed the Children does not offer a refund if the food you purchase is regurgitated by its recipient.

Frustration Island

The Lost season 5 promos have hit the web!



I must admit, I was this close to not only leaving Lost out of my forthcoming ranking of my top 5 TV dramas, I was even considering giving it a dishonorable mention. First, there was that annoying Desmond-centric episode all about time travel and electromagnetism that sexually excited all the nerd viewers and lulled all us normal viewers to sleep (yes, I’m still allowed to classify myself as a non-nerd because I’ve never seen Star Wars). Then, that whole “moving the island” finale from May was the straw that broke the camel’s back—it pushed the series from subtle, intelligent, coherent Spielbergian sci-fi to inane, cartoonish, insipid, eyeroll-inducing George Lucasian sci-fi. But still, I’m not even gonna pretend there’s a chance in hell I won’t tune in this January. There’re always Sawyer’s nicknames to enjoy!

And season 4 did get at least one thing right: they finally killed of Michael!

WA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAALT!

--Ray

***Update: Sorry, those Fascists at ABC have pulled the leaked trailer off YouTube. You'll see it sooner or later.

Fave 5 - Comedy

Before I delve into my list of TV musts, I’d like to point out that EVERY SINGLE ENTRY on Sonia’s list is a show I physically (sometimes violently) forced her to watch on DVD and only allowed her to return said DVDs when a knowledge of the content that showed watching comprehension was displayed. (Alas, I still couldn’t stop her from some fast-forwarding here and there.)

OK, here are my Top 5 current TV Comedies (dramas to follow) …

5. Desperate Housewives (ABC) This unique suburban satire mixed with a soap has certainly had its missteps along the way (the Betty Applewhite season with the killer ‘tard locked in the basement; Mary Alice’s ridiculously obvious narration: “A secret is something you don’t tell people.” Thanks Mary Alice!), but there’s still no place on TV like Wisteria Lane—a den of iniquity, mystery, comedy, and bulimia. (That last one’s for Teri Hatcher.) The 5-year fast-forward is working wonders for the show’s creativity and they’ve finally found something for Gabby (Eva Longoria, the most underrated housewife) to do after 4 seasons of her character having to undergo the tired, weekly edition of “Gabby Does Something Funny in Heels.” (Season 5 currently airing)

4. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX) The best show you've never heard of features the most misanthropic cast of characters assembled since the latest Cheney family reunion. Just take a quick glance at the episode titles and you’ll see the caliber of people we’re dealing with: there’s brother and sister Dennis and Dee (Glenn Howerton and Kaitlin Olson) who take selfishness to a whole new level (Dennis once ran away from her in a back alley leaving her to be mugged; Dee once feigned mental retardation in an attempt to go on welfare), their not-father Frank (Danny DeVito), narcissistic Mac (Rob McElhenney), and loveable Charlie (Charlie Day) who is functionally illiterate and is the product of a failed abortion. Each ridiculously hilarious, irreverent, and, for the most part, improvised episode features an I Love Lucy-esque scheme in which the gang tries to get rich and/or famous. Now that I think about it, it’s a lot like Lucy if Lucy and Ethel were in a perpetual state of semi-drunkenness and Lucy regularly sucker-punched Ethel in the jaw. (Season 4 currently airing.)

3. The Office (NBC) While the British version was incredibly brilliant, the creators of the American version did the series right by replacing the very British acerbic contempt all the characters at the Wernham Hogg paper company had for each other with the very American surreptitious camaraderie the Dunder-Mifflinites share. Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) remains the most hilariously pathetic character in primetime—a man so in need of a friend and so deluded in the overestimation of his own personality that he clings to non-friend Jim like a monkey to a tree branch. Forget financial success, Michael represents the true all-American goal: getting to hang out with the cool kids. (Season 5 currently airing.)

2. 30 Rock (NBC) Following in the grand tradition of Arrested Development, Tina Fey’s 30 Rock basks in the glow of Emmy (Best Comedy Series, 2007) after Golden Globe (Best Actor, 2007; Best Actress, 2008) after Emmy (Best Comedy Series, 2008), after SAG award (Best Actor and Actress, 2008) after Emmy (Best Actor and Actress, 2008; Best Writing, 2008) but still boasts an audience so small, when Fey accepted one of the aforementioned awards, she thanked “our dozens and dozens of viewers.” There just doesn’t seem to be any way to convince the general public to watch (if this scene doesn’t convince you, nothing will) and it’s in dangerous cancellation territory. Please, help save the only national show to ever give Cleveland such a loving (albeit slightly sarcastic) shout out! (Season 3 premieres October 30.)

1. Weeds (Showtime) If one were to place Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) on the feminist continuum in which June Cleaver was a 1 and the vodka-soaked strumpets of Sex and the City were a 10, Nancy would be about a 15. It’s daunting to even consider the genius Parker must possess to play a character who is shamelessly the worst mother ever portrayed on a non-Cops show (she blatantly ignores her kids, endangers their lives, and permits them to be accomplices in her illegal drug deals) and, at the same time, one of the most endearing, sympathetic, and admirable characters we've seen. (She's also made an iced coffee a de rigueur fashion accessory.) Add to that the fact that series creator Jenji Kohan continually infuses Weeds with endless bon mots on the subjects of familial, sexual, and American politics and you get the most intelligently hilarious show on TV. And forget DH, Weeds was this year’s champion of reinvention by completely changing the location of the show and giving us a finale that completely shocked us (I won’t expand because I know my co-blogger is behind) and will take the show in yet another direction for next season. (Season 5 begins in 2009).

Honorable mentions: Greek (ABC Family), Ugly Betty (ABC), Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)

Dishonorable mention: Entourage (HBO) The problem with this show is that there is no Big! I know, it’s such a cliché to refer to Entourage as the male version of SATC, but if I wanted to see an endless revolving door of scantily clad ho-bags, the internet is my oyster! Now if I’m going to invest in the characters of a series, especially one that’s now in its fifth season (and has been renewed for a sixth), there really needs to be some semblance of a through line here. Entourage also needs to stop relying on Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) for 97% of its laughs (Lloyd (Rex Lee) provides the other 3%). Let those four schlubs who are supposed to be the main characters get in on the action. And enough about Medellín already! It flopped, now move on!

--Ray

Drape' Escape

Mad Men, Episode: "The Jet Set"

Don Draper running loose in L.A.: what good can possibly come of this?!

I’m sure my fellow bluddy (that’s blog buddy for those of you who aren’t up on the hip lingo) Sonia was thrilled with a Betty Draper-free episode but did anyone else notice how the 21-year-old L.A. lady (who was no blue-jean baby… sorry, I couldn’t resist) Don picked up sounded exactly like Betty? Loved how the writers shamelessly played on the “everyone in California is a whackjob” stereotype by highlighting the slightly incestuous group of bored bon vivants who played as his hosts.

Back on the east coast, after finding out that her date Kurt was a ‘mo, Peggy got a makeover instead of getting laid. When did Mad Men become Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?

--Ray

Bristolnacht

Skins, Episode: “Maxxie and Tony”

Time for a break from housewives and Seattle Grace residents to check in with an obscure TV show. Last night was the season 2 premiere of Skins, a phenomenal British series that follows a group of kids in Bristol, which may be the best show ever about highschoolers. It’s the perfect mix of seriousness and soap—think Friday Night Lights with sometimes-indecipherable, eurotrash-chic cockney accents instead of sometimes-indecipherable west Texas accents. After last week’s season 1 finale (the show originally ran last year on England's E4 channel; we’re getting seasons 1 and 2 back to back on BBC America, albeit with all the bleeps and blurs required for a puritanical American audience), Tony’s brain damage from his accident has quickly brought him from lothario to loser. (Jason Street, are you out there?!) This show has an amazing ability to garnish heartwrenchingly sad story arcs such as sickness and parental abandonment with irreverant humor.

To give you an idea of what an average episode of Skins looks like, I’ve embedded the season 1 trailer below. Move over Serena van der Woodsen! Your cocaine-fueled "murder" is so High School Musical by comparison!



Yeah, we'd party like that too if we had universal healthcare and a drinking age of 9!

--Ray

Million Dollar (Cry)Baby

Desperate Housewives, Episode: “Kids Ain’t Like Everybody Else”

In the red corner…. he’s the son of an ex-con, ex-comatose plumber and an emaciated children’s author whom no one has ever actually witnessed writing… boasting a rape whistle his mommy gave him… weighing in at 31 lbs. 6 oz…. it’s MJ “Mama’s Boy” Delfino!

And in the blue corner… she’s the daughter of a blind masseuse and a disgruntled former model who’s fallen from grace… weighing in at 205 lbs. 4 oz…. she floats/sinks like a butterfly/rock and stings like a bee… it’s Juanita “The Porker” Solis!

These fisticuffs were the highpoint of last night’s DH. I’d rather be pelted with hot animal feces than be forced to listen to Tom Scavo and Edie’s husband Dave’s “jam sessions” anymore. If Mike and Orson join up as promised, we’ll need to come up with some possible band names:

Stuffed Crust (if pizzeria owner Tom is the lead singer)
Dental Dam (if dentist Orson is the lead singer)
Flushing Queens (if plumber Mike is the lead singer and gay Andrew Van De Kamp is a groupie)

--Ray

DVR Deluge - Part Deux

Is everyone prepared for tonight's major DVR blowout?! Poor ol' Bertha Lou (yes, I named my DVR) will be working overtime tonight. Here's a preview...

8pm Ugly Betty (ABC)

8:30pm Kath & Kim (NBC) Molly Shannon and Selma Blair (pictured) are going toe-to-toe as mother and daughter in this series premiere, a British import. Early buzz says it’s bad, but critics always hate comedies initially and then by January are telling us it’s brilliant (they did that to us with The Office and 30 Rock).

9pm The Office (NBC)

9pm Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) This episode better be free of icicles.

9:30pm SNL: Weekend Update Thursday (NBC) Rumors are swirling that the Queen Moose herself Sarah Palin will be making a cameo on this special, the first of three primetime election round-ups. Can't wait for a Fey/Palin face-off! "I can see Russia from my house!"

10pm It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX) The title of tonight’s episode of this incredibly hilarious yet ratings-challenged show is “Who Pooped the Bed?” Need I say more?

10pm Eleventh Hour (CBS) This series premiere is the one we’re most likely to leave on ol' Bertha Lou for 2 weeks then delete. It’s yet another CSI rip-off and with no one mildly famous in the cast, our interest level is not registering at all on the TV Richter scale.

10pm Life on Mars (ABC) Despite our aversion to sci-fi and time travel, this series premiere (about a cop who gets knocked unconscious and wakes up in the ‘70s) features Harvey Keitel and (unibrow alert!) Michael Imperioli so we may have check it out. I just don't know if Imperioli will be any good without good ol' Adrianna. ("Christophuh! You sat on Cosette!")

10:30pm Testees (FX) Along with its hilarious double entendre title, this series premiere also boasts one of the best premises we’ve ever heard of: a bunch of people who make money by undergoing experimental medical procedures and taking non-FDA-approved drugs. Sign me up! (For the show, not the procedures.)

Click click*,

Ray

*That's goodbye in Igbo, an African language. Sonia thinks she's Ms. Multiculti? Match that!

Too Gross for Comfort

Welcome to our new feature where we recognize the nastiest recent line of TV dialog. Our first winner is…

“I broke my water myself… with a knitting needle!” --Molly Madison (played by Amy Acker), a patient on Private Practice.

All together now: EW!

Whatever happened to the good, ol’ fashioned clothes hanger?!

--Ray

The Pratt Pack

The Hills, Episode: “Don’t Act Innocent…”

Poor Frankie. He’s the Hills character who has been constantly mentioned on the show since season 1, is always hosting pool parties at his house, and even manages to sneak into a few shots here and there but, unfortunately, due to his not-100% Caucasian ethnic background, is not permitted to actually be included in Lauren’s vapid entourage.

Chez Frankie played host to one of two Pratt meltdowns this week: the first being Stephanie Pratt and Doug’s. First of all, these two have ZERO chemistry together and are clearly feigning a connection just to get an entire episode devoted to them (mission accomplished!) After each tried to explain their way out of their hook-up, trusty Brody emerged to bitch out Stephanie for the 15th time this season! Then Lauren came to comfort/not comfort a crying Stephanie but ended up just alternating between wiping her tears and glaring at her uncomfortably during long stretches of silences. Remember, on the Lauren Conrad Scale of Emotions, an uncomfortable silence is comparable to a normal person having a full-blown conniption that includes screaming, crying, and object-smashing.

Pratt Meltdown # 2: After Heidi’s dim-witted sister decided to surprise Heidi by flying their mother in from non-LA (that’s how people on The Hills define any locale that’s outside of LA, NYC, London or Paris), the real surprise was that Mama Montag had no idea her silicone-infused daughter was even living with Spencer Pratt the King of Smarmy. In an attempt to find a common ground, Spenc and prospective Mama-in-law went out to lunch and he spent the entire time making mocking, sarcastic, and sometimes threatening comments to her, all the while doing his trademark “obnoxious full-grin with head tilt.” Welcome to the family!

In the end, the best part of this episode was the 3-second shot we got of Whitney spitting out pool water. As the only Lauren hanger-on with any semblance of intelligence, how much longer is Whit going to deal with these inane, sushi-eating morons before she wises up?

Oh well, time to go put on my giant, Olsen-sized sunglasses and dine alfresco. See you next week, Lauren and the gang!

--Ray

Gimmie 5...Years

Desperate Housewives, Episode: “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow”

As we all know from the final scenes of the DH season 4 finale, the series is jumping ahead 5 years to reinvigorate the writing and to help explain why Nicollette Sheridan’s plastic surgery techniques look so 2013.

So let’s jump right in and check on our housewives, one-by-one, to see how the flash-forward has treated them…

Susan

With a new, cute, albeit terribly miscast baby (why would Susan’s baby be blonde? Or have legs that measure more than four inches in diameter?), Susan’s now doing her painter. Seriously, the whole “housewife effs a blue collar guy and hilariously pushes him out the window to avoid getting caught” story arc is très season one. (Oh, Jesse Metcalfe, your career just hasn’t taken off as quickly as you’d hoped!) Then, just when we thought we were finally rid of Mike the Percocet-Poppin’ Plumber (if his name were Peter, that would’ve been even more alliterative), it turns out that he didn’t actually die in a car crash as we were led to believe at the beginning of the episode. I, for one, am relieved. Now we get yet another season of Mike Delfino, the least interesting DH character ever! (Yes, even less interesting than Susan’s daughter, What’s-Her-Name.)

Lynette

I have to say I’m more than mildly perturbed with Lynette’s child count! First, she had like 9. Then 4. Now, we’re down to just 2! Maybe we’ll find out what happened in the 5-year interim—and maybe DCFS was involved—but the now-16-year-old red-headed boys (AKA The Ginger Mafia) are engaging in ridiculously exaggerated misbehavior like turning their parents’ pizza place into an illegal, after-hours casino. Tune in next week when the Scavo twins kill a hooker and Lynette has to bury the body...in heels!

Gabby

Now fat and frumpy (and by fat I mean ‘TV fat,’ which is like 114 lbs., and by frumpy, I mean they make her wear clothes from Macy’s instead of Saks), Gabby has 2 fatty daughters, one of whom downs cake like nobody’s bidness. The still-blind Carlos is…well…still blind.

Bree

Having built a Martha Stewart-esque empire, Bree Van De Kamp isn’t getting along so hot with Katherine Mayfair. All we really gathered from the 5 year break is that her beeyotch daughter stole the baby and that Orson the annoying dentist/vehicular homicide-attempter is still in the picture.

…Oh, and the kind-of-a-main-housewife-but-not-always-included-amongst-the-group-as-a-whole-and-not-featured-in-the-opening-credits-thereby-ranking-her-beneath-the-four-main-housewives housewife Edie is back with a new hubby (played by Neal McDonough, that creepy guy with the crazy eyes from Boomtown—remember that show?—no?—well that’s why it was cancelled) who may or may not be a serial killer. Here’s to hoping that either Mike or Orson is his first victim!

--Ray

P.S. - Can’t wait until season 6 when they flash forward another 5 years. Possible story arc: Susan needs a hip replacement and the hip of a preemie baby is used.

DVR Deluge

Can we please talk about tonight's DVR extravaganza?! These are all the shows I have scheduled tonight...

9pm Desperate Housewives (ABC) Season 5 premiere
9pm Family Guy (FOX) Season 7 premiere
9pm Dexter (Showtime) Season 3 premiere
10pm Brothers & Sisters (ABC) Season 3 premiere
10pm Mad Men (AMC)
10pm Skins (BBC America) (A phenomenal British series I've been addicted to!)
10pm Californication (Showtime) Season 2 premiere

The best part is, I have an essay on Emma due early tomorrow! Sorry, Jane Austen but Bree Van De Kamp is just more culturally relevant than you right now.

--Ray

Ice, Ice, Baby

Grey’s Anatomy, Episode: “Dream a Little Dream of Me”

Now comes the time for me to eschew any and all vestiges of masculinity so I can bring you my recap of Grey’s Anatomy: a show watched by millions of 14-year-old girls, middle-aged cat ladies, and me. I know what you’re thinking: “Ray, didn’t you eschew your masculinity a loooong time ago when you became obsessed with Gossip Girl?” To which I would respond, “STFU. I’ve been watching girl-TV since the mid-‘90s!” (Ally McBeal, you’re gone but not forgotten!)

So here we are in season 5 of G’sA or as I like to call it, Loquacious, Ethnically Diverse Doctors of Varying Levels of Attractiveness, Most of Whom are Sluts, or LEDDVLAMWS for short. First of all, I love how the people on this show get a ridiculously unlimited amount of face time with their doctors, specifically the scene in which Dr. Karev counseled one of the various, overacting, Guest-Actress-in-a-Drama-Emmy-hungry extras about her husband cheating on her. I had to wait an hour and a half to get a damn throat culture, but these people get all day! "Excuse me doctor, can you please leave your 30 dying patients (including my husband who has ebola, the clap, and a steak knife jammed into his occipital lobe) alone for a while so you can sit with me in a vacant, dimly lit room and discuss the many dangers, toils, and snares of marriage and/or life in general while snow falls poignantly outside and an acoustic cover of a Jeff Buckley song by Michelle Branch plays in the background? OK, thanks!”

I don’t recall much of the beginning of this episode but it followed the general outline of a Grey’s opening:

9:00-9:02 Light banter about doctor’s sex lives.
9:02-9:04 Dr. Bailey and her white-girl haircut yell at people.
9:04-9:07 Patient shows up at ER entrance with outlandish wound. Patient is always outlandish person (midget, prostitute, Amish lesbian) impaled with outlandish foreign object (blender, twig, Mariah Carey album)
9:07 Grey’s Anatomy logo dramatically appears right after someone faints.

All I remember is that there was some woman whose memory reset every 30 seconds. (Memento rip-off! Christopher Nolan, call your lawyer!) Life actually wouldn’t be so bad if your memory reset every 30 seconds: you could eat twice a minute guilt-free! (Note to self: suffer head trauma, buy Doritos.)

So we’re plodding through the 2-hour premiere thinking, “You know what this episode needs? A metaphor for Dr. Yang’s cold demeanor displaying how, some day, it will catch up with her!” when Dr. Yang, during an outlandish speech, slips outlandishly and is then outlandishly impaled by… wait for it… an icicle! Oh, the outlandishness! Making matters worse, the shot of the icicle breaking was bad TV-CGI (brought to you by the makers of the Lost smoke monster!). Cristina “Brillo Pad Eyebrows” Yang survived to make out with some random army doctor. Maybe he’ll become her new boyfriend… until he inevitably calls Dr. O'Malley a fag on set and gets fired.

Katherine “Don’t Nominate Me for an Emmy” Heigl (in case you haven’t noticed, I love doing mid-name nicknames) had a Denny flashback in which she had to wear that damn prom dress again (I hope it was laundered). Despite 15 botched heart transplants (courtesy of Dr. Izzie “I Don’t Know What the F**k I’m Doing” Stevens) and having been dead for 2 years, Denny still manages to keep his stubble at just the perfect length!

So, kids, Grey’s is officially back! Time to vote on which scenario will open next week’s show…

A. A white supremacist hemophiliac with a heart of gold is impaled by one of his burning crosses.
B. A husband and wife who are also conjoined twins have been impaled with a garden hose.
C. A blind, morbidly obese Muslim child with a prosthetic neck has purposely impaled himself on a parade float much to the chagrin of his fundamentalist parents.
D. A perfectly healthy girl shows up at the ER entrance looking to fill out a job application to work in the maintenance department. Dr. Bailey impales her with a mop.

--Ray

ROD – The 60th Annual Emmys Edition

Welcome to the first edition of “ROD” or "Random Observations During." Here, instead of providing you with a streamlined, organized, thesis-driven editorial about a television show, we just messily list our knee-jerk reactions in a scattershot manner. In case you haven’t noticed, the budget of our humble blog GMTOGMD doesn’t allow for an editor.

8:00 PM – Unless she’s giving out cars or corralling Tom Cruise, Oprah is just boring.

8:19 PM – Travesty # 1: Jean Smart of Samantha Who? beats out SNL’s Amy Poehler (our first choice), Ugly Betty’s Vanessa Williams (our second choice), and Pushing Daisies’s Kristen Chenoweth (our third choice) for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy. Nobody even watches Samantha Who? and Amy Poehler is our generation’s Lucille Ball! (Yes, I stand behind that.)

8:29 PM – Travesty # 2: Some dude with an unpronounceable name from Damages beats out Mad Men’s John Slattery (our first choice) and Lost’s Michael Emerson (our second choice) for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama. It’s been 30 minutes and no one good has won!

8:42 PM – Oh snap! Conan O’Brien makes fun of Katherine Heigl for bowing out of the Best Supporting Actress in a Drama category this year. This almost makes up for Travesty # 3: Dianne Wiest (In Treatment) beating Chandra Wilson, Sandra Oh (both Grey’s Anatomy), and Rachel Griffiths (Brothers & Sisters). The winner didn’t even show! We’d have taken an ungrateful Izzie Stevens over this!

8:52 PM – Steve Martin reminisces about some (possibly) dead guy. Where’s Brangelina?

8:53 PM – Steve’s Martin’s dead guy accepts the award indicating he’s likely not dead.

8:56 PM – Who are you and why are you STILL talking?! Seriously, is Brangelina anywhere in the vicinity?! I don’t even care if they’re at an Applebee’s, just cut to them!

9:01 PM – Josh Groban? Bring back the not-dead guy! I’m sorry for what I said about him!

9:06 PM – Just because you wear glasses doesn’t mean we’ll forget about the “rude little pig” voicemail, Alec Baldwin! It’s time for the miniseries/TV movies awards, AKA snack time.

9:19 PM – Heidi Klum refers to Bones as The Bones. Who says being the host of the Emmys requires you know TV shows’ names?!

9:20 PM – Lauren Conrad and David Boreanaz have the embarrassing role of presenting other presenters. You know, if Lauren would just admit that The Hills is scripted, she could actually be eligible to win Emmys instead of presenting people who present Emmys!

9:25 PM – Tina Fey wins for writing 30 Rock! She’s our generation’s Lucille Ball. Wait, did I already use that? OK, she’s Ethel. Also, she references one of the greatest lines in the history of 30 Rock: “Never go with a hippie to a second location.”

9:28-9:43 PM – Too-long clip from The West Wing, Martin Sheen tells us to vote, the speech by the president of the ATAS, then more awards for TV movies and miniseries. The only highlight from this stretch of snoozery is the producer of Recount almost running into the camera when walking up the aisle.

9:44 PM – John Stewart and Stephen Colbert help us forget how bored we are with more directing and writing awards by comparing John McCain to a prune.

10:15 PM – It’s 10:15 and they’re still giving out directing awards? We’re all going to die.

10:16 PM – Mad Men wins for Best Writing for a Drama Series! This bodes well for it to win the biggie. I swear to God, if House, Damages, or, heaven forbid, Boston Legal wins I’ll have a conniption. That would effectively render the Emmys equal to the Grammys in the level of inanity with which the final award is given. (In case you missed it, at this year’s Grammys, a Herbie Hancock cover album (yes, cover, as in non-original material) beat both Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black and Kanye West’s Graduation for Album of the Year.)

10:25 PM – Finally, the real awards. OK, we’ll forgive Alec “rude little pig” Baldwin because he absolutely deserves to win Best Actor in a Comedy for 30 Rock which is now officially funnier than The Office.

10:28 PM – Does anyone watch Damages? I still think of Glenn Close (winner of Best Actress in a Drama) as Cruella de Vil only.

10:29 PM – Dead people slide show! No, Estelle Getty! Come back to us!

10:38 PM – Shock of the night: Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) beats favored John Hamm (Mad Men) for Best Actor in a Drama. We think MM is the better show, but all that matters really is that neither the ridiculously overrated James Spader (Boston Legal) nor the Britishly overrated Hugh Laurie (House) won.

10:41 PM – Yay, Tina Fey (Best Actress in a Comedy)! Mary-Louise Parker is a goddess but, again, 30 Rock is the funniest show on television. (Weeds is the second-funniest!)

10:42 PM – It took us 2 hours and 42 minutes, but we finally get a funny bit—Jimmy Kimmel’s reality TV spoof when announcing Jeff Probst (Survivor) as the winner of Best Reality TV Show Host.

10:53 PM – An emaciated Mary Tyler Moore and an awesome Betty White give Tina Fey the Best Comedy Series Emmy for 30 Rock. If you don’t watch a show after it wins the Best Comedy Series Emmy two years in a row, something is just wrong with you!

10:56 PM – Yes Mad Men (Best Drama Series)! Die, Boston Legal, die! (Sorry, I’m still upset about last year’s Emmys when James Spader of Boston Legal beat James freakin’ Gandolfini of The Sopranos—AKA the greatest show in modern history—for Best Actor in a Drama, an event now known as “The Worst Moment in the History of the Emmys.” Making it even worse: that was The Sopranos's final year.)

10:57 PM – Thanks to rushing through the end of the show like no one’s business, The Emmys end 3 minutes early. We only had 3 travesties which means I won’t swear off this whole TV thing. (As if I ever was going to.) Good night kids!

--Ray

The Least of My "Brother"s

How do you know the summer is officially over? Is it the days getting shorter? The chill in the air? The kids going back to school? Hell no! You know fall has begun when Julie Chen makes her hair extra poofy for the Big Brother finale! Tuesday night, Dan, who only owns one, red St. Mary’s T-shirt, beat Memphis, the dim-witted, cockatoo-haired “mixologist,” by a unanimous vote. While this season was underwhelming to say the least (listen, you just can’t top a full-cast pool orgy, seizures, and an emotionally unstable, unnaturally-lactating bikini barista), Dan’s win was a welcome relief over the aforementioned mix-o-cockatoo and Colonel Crankypants (Jerry).

Our finale kicked off with the “Pick me, choose me, LOVE ME” segment where each of the final two begs the jury, Meredith Grey-style, to vote for them. Memphis tried to make “Ya know” his “But first” by using it 38 times during his addresses to the jury but Dan obviously made a much better impression by turning on his charm—and by charm I mean screaming into the camera as usual. As for the jury, April wore a full leather catsuit for no apparent reason and if Renny’s bipolar continuum were an automobile, the Check Engine light would have definitely been on.

Speaking of Renny the N’Awlins Loon, during the Parade O’ Jurors, she took a full three minutes to walk down the terribly designed, wooden walkway to enter her designated stage area. (Seriously, what inebriated set designer chose “Midwestern deck” as the studio’s theme?) At one point, none of the audience members were even offering their hands to shake anymore; Renny just began belligerently grabbing them and forcing a shake to prolong her screen time. Last Renny observation, I promise: She began her speech with, “In life and in TV games…” Isn’t that from Psalms?

Post-vote, Chenny brought back the houseguests who didn’t make the jury (AKA the people we stopped caring about in mid-July) and Brian delivered an interminable rant about how he witnessed some incredibly mean behavior while watching at home such as April and Michelle making fun of Keesha’s clothes. Obviously, Brian missed last season if he thinks that qualifies as mean! (If you also missed last season, here are two small samplings: 1. Several houseguests made fun of the fact that Amanda’s father hung himself to her face. 2.) Houseguests Chelsia and Josh, after finding out fellow houseguest Natalie had had several abortions, conspired to throw ketchup on her and shout, “This is the blood from your aborted baby fetuses!” (The BB producers put a stop to that one before it happened.)) In short, for something to qualify as “mean” in the Big Brother house, the mocking of death better be somehow involved!

In conclusion, if anything good came out of this unremarkable and predictable season finale, it was the genesis of “Give Me TV or Give Me Death,” the co-blog by myself, Ray, and my fellow-blogger Sonia! We have filled our DVRs to the brim to bring you our reactions to every moment of the television season ahead of us. From the new (90210 2.0) to the played out (yes, Prison Break is still on the air and we love it!), from the critically lauded (Mad Men, 30 Rock) to the critically reviled (you’ll never take The Hills from us!), from the young (Gossip Girl) to the elderly (The 700 Club… OK, just kidding on that one), we’re bringing it all to you!

So let the 2008/2009 TV season begin! Sonia and I will be here to rant, rave, review, recap, recollect, recapitulate and revel in every Dunder-Mifflin kerfuffle (The Office), every inexplicable smoke monster appearance (Lost), every ridiculous medical procedure that is conveniently evocative of the personal issues Meredith Grey happens to be currently enduring, every CTU phone ring (doot doot DOOT doo), and every disfigured lesbian midget with lobster claws and postpartum depression (Nip/Tuck). So for the 3 people (including Sonia and I) who will visit this web page throughout this TV season, we salute you! We’re doing it for you, America*!

--Ray

*Again, by America, I mean the 0.0000006% of the American population that will read this.