TODAY’S REALLY GOOD NEWS: TNT PICKED UP SOUTHLAND for another season! New episodes will start airing January 2011. It does my heart good when a really great show is supported and I applaud TNT for ordering more episodes of this fine cop drama.
WEEKEND VIEWING:
Gabby Sidibe on SNL: While I love Sidibe and her effervescent Valley Girl spirit, I couldn’t help but notice that she thinks funny mean loud. She acquitted herself nicely considering the sketches were weak. Even the digital short fell…short this week – I mean,cherry spitting? Of course, I still enjoyed “Alarm Clocks and More” but then, I’m a sucker for that bit.
TREME: I’m loving the music, especially the street buskers and the female violinist. I’m also mesmerized by Clarke Peters’ quiet dignity and strength in his performance. Khandi Alexander is also very strong and you can feel her anger and frustration through the screen as her character tries to navigate through local and state red tape in order to find a relative who disappeared after Katrina.
BREAKING BAD: The pace of the show has picked up this season and the stakes are higher too as Walt narrowly evades both the law and a couple of really evil killers. The show really has a way with visual imagery that is haunting and memorable. And the performances by both Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul continue to be very very good. I wish they used Bob Odenkirk’s “Better Call Saul” more but I’ll take whatever I can get with him.
THE PACIFIC: My heart is in little pieces after watching the last two installments and the reason is Joseph Mazzello’s performance as Sledge. He’s a nice southern kid from Mobile, Alabama who finds himself in the midst of Peleliu, a truly horrible battle on a small, rain-soaked island. While the episodes are hard to watch, they’re well worth the effort because they convey the relentless hardship of war and the character of the men who lived through it. Jon Seda is finally getting the star-making turn he deserves as John Basilone – a war hero who went back into the thick of it after winning the Medal of Honor.
YOU DON’T KNOW JACK: A very sobering piece of moviemaking but worth every minute of your time as the performances are stellar across the board. Al Pacino is doing some very interesting work as he gets older and he’s sure to get an Emmy nomination for this performance as Dr. Jack Kevorkian. It’s a tough subject but it’s handled very smartly and sensitively by writer Adam Mazer and director Barry Levinson. John Goodman is also terrific as a friend of Jack’s who helps him get started in the euthanasia business. Many beautiful moments are provided courtesy of Brenda Vaccaro as Kevorkian’s sister Margo and Susan Sarandon as Janet Goode, a woman who runs a right to die group and crosses paths with the doctor. Another incredible HBO original movie.
IN PLAIN SIGHT: I caught up with last week’s episode over the weekend and I’m really digging Steven Weber as federal agent Faber and the guy who could be Mary’s new love interest. I laughed out loud when he called her kitten and then after asking her out and finding out she’d just broken up with someone, Mary told him something to the effect of, “Yeah, I could go out with you if I was a shallow needy slut” and he replied, “A boy can dream.” My other favorite scene was Mary and Marshall in the car when Mary begged him to distract her from her recent breakup with Raf and for the first time ever, Marshall had nothing to say, which prompted Mary to say, “You’re verbally impotent” and Marshall said, “I swear, this has never happened before…”
TV I MISSED BUT WILL PROBABLY CATCH A REPEAT: The History Channel’s AMERICA: THE STORY OF US and Discovery’s Stephen Hawking premiere, and the TV Land Awards.
EARLY HEADS UP FOR THIS WEEK:
Tuesday night: THE HILLS season premiere at 10pm, followed by THE CITY season premiere at 1030pm on MTV.
Wednesday night: HAPPY TOWN premieres on ABC starring one of my TV faves: Geoff Stults. Over on NBC, Sharon Stone starts her arc of LAW & ORDER: SVU episodes as an ADA who was once involved with Det. Stabler.
TODAY’S SURF WRITTEN WHILE LISTENING TO: The White Stripes “Fell in Love with a Girl”
TODAY’S BONUS: Check out the guest post I did for Clicker.com: The Surf Report’s Top 10 List of My Darling Future Ex-TV Husbands:
http://www.clicker.com/blog/the-surf-reports-top-10-list-of-my-darling-future-ex-tv-husbands/
Tonight’s rundown:
ABC: 8:00 p.m. Dancing With the Stars (90-minutes) 9:30 p.m. Romantically Challenged 10:00 p.m. Castle (R)
CBS: 8:00 p.m. How I Met Your Mother (R) 8:30 p.m. Rules of Engagement 9:00 p.m. Two and a Half Men (R) 9:30 p.m. The Big Bang Theory (R) 10:00 p.m. CSI: Miami (R)
NBC: 8:00 p.m. Chuck 9:00 p.m. Trauma (series finale) 10:00 p.m. Law & Order (R)
Tonight’s new episode of CHUCK is “Chuck vs. the Honeymooners”: Chuck and Sarah travel to Europe where they run into Spanish spies on a train. I hear it’s an especially funny episode.
FOX: 8:00 p.m. House 9:00 p.m. 24
D.B. Sweeney and Michael Madsen guest in tonight’s episode of 24.
THE CW: 8:00 p.m. One Tree Hill 9:00 p.m. Gossip Girl
Billy Baldwin makes his debut in tonight’s GOSSIP GIRL as Serena’s father.
ABC Family: 8pm: 10 Things I Hate About You
SHOWTIME: 10pm: Nurse Jackie, 1030pm: The United States of Tara
TNT: NBA Playoff Game
USA: WWE Monday Night Raw
VH1: 9pm: Tough Love: Couples – The couples try to spice up their sex lives with purchases from a sex shop.
That’s a wrap for now.
