Misc. TV Round-up
Friday Night Lights: I got hooked by the Bravo marathon (I've only seen through "Git 'Er Done" so far), but I'm very afraid that my NBC affiliate might not be carrying it for some bizarre reason. There was nothing listed for last Wednesday, so I didn't even know there had been a new ep until I was perusing ep guides last night. Next week, it lists some Margo Thomas hosted documentary about kids with birth defects. Can y'all check your Tivos for me? Is there supposed to be a new episode there instead?
My very brief FNL comment: Tim Riggins is the Jordan Catalano of 2007.
Afterlife: (Currently airing on BBC America.) Alison is an unhappy woman who sees dead people; Robert is a skeptical psychologist with a dead son, who decides to write a book about Alison. So far they're not doing anything revolutionary with the seeing dead people part, but folie a deux is one of my bulletproof kinks and this show has got it in buckets. The narrative makes it fairly clear that what Alison sees *is* real (we see the spirits doing things that Alison doesn't see, for example), but the intense, twisty, conflicted relationship that develops as she tries to convince Robert is f. a. d. gold. And the episode "Daniel One And Two" is one of the creepiest things I have ever seen on television.
The Lost Room: Did anyone else watch this? As you probably gathered from the endless commercials on Sci-Fi, it was a miniseries about a motel room where something very strange happened years ago. The room and all its contents gained weird magical powers, and an entire subculture of people obsessed with the objects sprang up. I suspect that, like the BSG miniseries, this was a trial run for a series, because although the immediate plot came to a resolution, the larger mystery behind the room was never explained and the larger conflict between the different factions of collectors wasn't resolved. Frankly, I doubt that Sci-Fi has the clout to get Peter Krause and Julianne Margulies to commit to a series, but I'd like to see a series go forward even if they have to re-cast. The miniseries was surreal, stylish, and suspenseful, with generous doses of black humor. It belongs to a genre that I'm not sure there's a name for: stories that take place in rundown corners of the Southwest or SoCal, full of salesmen, grifters, detectives, and eccentrics, filmed in harsh desert light and washed-out colors. Not noir, exactly, but something sort of related.
My very brief FNL comment: Tim Riggins is the Jordan Catalano of 2007.
Afterlife: (Currently airing on BBC America.) Alison is an unhappy woman who sees dead people; Robert is a skeptical psychologist with a dead son, who decides to write a book about Alison. So far they're not doing anything revolutionary with the seeing dead people part, but folie a deux is one of my bulletproof kinks and this show has got it in buckets. The narrative makes it fairly clear that what Alison sees *is* real (we see the spirits doing things that Alison doesn't see, for example), but the intense, twisty, conflicted relationship that develops as she tries to convince Robert is f. a. d. gold. And the episode "Daniel One And Two" is one of the creepiest things I have ever seen on television.
The Lost Room: Did anyone else watch this? As you probably gathered from the endless commercials on Sci-Fi, it was a miniseries about a motel room where something very strange happened years ago. The room and all its contents gained weird magical powers, and an entire subculture of people obsessed with the objects sprang up. I suspect that, like the BSG miniseries, this was a trial run for a series, because although the immediate plot came to a resolution, the larger mystery behind the room was never explained and the larger conflict between the different factions of collectors wasn't resolved. Frankly, I doubt that Sci-Fi has the clout to get Peter Krause and Julianne Margulies to commit to a series, but I'd like to see a series go forward even if they have to re-cast. The miniseries was surreal, stylish, and suspenseful, with generous doses of black humor. It belongs to a genre that I'm not sure there's a name for: stories that take place in rundown corners of the Southwest or SoCal, full of salesmen, grifters, detectives, and eccentrics, filmed in harsh desert light and washed-out colors. Not noir, exactly, but something sort of related.