Boston Legal, SG1 and SGA, Ugly Betty
I have to say the two shows that consistently delight and surprise me are Boston Legal and Ugly Betty. With Boston Legal, it is all about Denny and Alan for me. The innuendo keeps me amused by trying to guess if are they an item only in subtext or if it's canon.
Like in this week's ep, I could have sworn that Denny was mooning after Alan and Alan was either being hard to get or was trying to be discrete. Denny says he's a very giving lover in bed and looks to Alan and asks, "too much?" And earlier when Denny asked Alan to represent him, what was with that look of longing he gave Alan?
As for Jeffery Coho, I haven't liked him and felt his trial scenes were poaching Alan's territory. But, I did like his scenes with Denise. Now I can say I rather hope he does reappear later--maybe to face Alan in court? That would be fun.
Everyone seems to like Clarence but I don't. I freely acknowledge the actor is very skilled, but I don't care for how the character is written; it's too blatantly manipulative. I don't like twee and sweet unless it's used sparingly.
It took a little while to get used to, but I am warming to the fact that there are 6 regular characters and the supporting cast comes, stays for quite a few eps and then they leave. I also like the use of old favorite actors are judges; I was rerunning the scenes with 'Dr. Johnny Fever" to watch him react to the Denny and Alan show. Oh my god that Uncle Bill speech! Alan's sly little scoping out of the jury was priceless as was the judge's reaction. I love this show.
Ugly Betty is also delightful. BL, UB and the SGs are the only shows that I actually turn away from the computer and give 100% of my attention to them. I like all the characters on Ugly Betty. Even the villains are given depth and pathos...and humor.
I like them all and delight in their actions. I was prepared for Alexis to be more of a mustache twirling villain so to speak, but boy, after that bar scene where that jerk humiliates her, I was cheering when Wilomena decked him and I was urging her to kick him when he was down--which she did much to my satisfaction. Also, I find the portrayal of Betty's nephew to be wonderfully done. A gay child...isn't that a first for American TV? It's such a relief to see that his family accepts him and protects him.
Anyway, it is a great show and I very much recommend it.
I worked the beginning of the week and didn't start downloading til Thursday. After I got The Bad Guys, I spent a while trying to find the next SGA ep because I really wanted to see what happened next. I mean, hey, that was quite a cliffhan...oh. It was a cliffhanger because, say, it was ep #20 and that was the end of the season?? Duh!
Mom is warming up to SGA. She had Tivo'd a diabetic program but it turned out that it was a channel that we don't get, so it recorded something else entirely. She fondly said McKay was on tivo shouting and crying. It turns out it was Grace under Pressure.
I rather liked the Bad Guys. Because I had read some reactions from my flist, I did see there were some of Daniel's lines that would have been good McKay lines, but they worked at that time for Daniel, for me. Daniel is very flexible and that situation was pretty bizarre for him, so it makes sense to me that he'd acting a bit different, getting frustrated with the situation, the people that were making things more dangerous. I mean, this is the guy that hopped up and down with frustration in One False Step, and we've seen how snippy he gets when Vala pushes his buttons. I like that he as a snippy, pissy, sarcastic side.
And I like how well Teal'c, Mitchell and Vala worked together. I didn't miss Sam at all. I rather imagine that AT was working on Roads Not Taken since the rest of the cast was hardly in that one. And as all have already said, Teal'c had the best couple of moments, the "Remain calm" and that look he shot at Daniel. Cisero was fun; I glad he survived. I must admit that I liked this one off show, a departure from the Ori treadmill, a reminder of when the team would interact with a culture instead of that culture just being canon fodder for the Ori. I am sad that the clock is ticking on SG1.
Lost is on and I'm fastforwarding through it. And I blew off Numb3rs tonight for a rerun of Ellery Queen. I loved Ellery Queen, the way it gloried in the past with long, loving shots of the old cars and all the other old sets and props. I even had to stop a few times to look up references like being as fast as Glen Cunningham (the Kansas Flyer, a track star from the 1930s.) I was reading a fannish thing somewhere about how much research does one do and I realized that the details in Ellery Queen were probably only possible because the people that remember that time period were still around to recreate them.
Another thing with Ellery Queen, I keep on thinking that there's a backstory somewhere to explain all those little details about Ellery and his dad. Perhaps Ellery had been kidnapped as a child and that's why he is so focused to the point of being absent minded and his dad and Velie are so protective, even now when Ellery is a tall, strong man. I just did a search for Ellery Queen fiction and got nothing. That's sad.
Like in this week's ep, I could have sworn that Denny was mooning after Alan and Alan was either being hard to get or was trying to be discrete. Denny says he's a very giving lover in bed and looks to Alan and asks, "too much?" And earlier when Denny asked Alan to represent him, what was with that look of longing he gave Alan?
As for Jeffery Coho, I haven't liked him and felt his trial scenes were poaching Alan's territory. But, I did like his scenes with Denise. Now I can say I rather hope he does reappear later--maybe to face Alan in court? That would be fun.
Everyone seems to like Clarence but I don't. I freely acknowledge the actor is very skilled, but I don't care for how the character is written; it's too blatantly manipulative. I don't like twee and sweet unless it's used sparingly.
It took a little while to get used to, but I am warming to the fact that there are 6 regular characters and the supporting cast comes, stays for quite a few eps and then they leave. I also like the use of old favorite actors are judges; I was rerunning the scenes with 'Dr. Johnny Fever" to watch him react to the Denny and Alan show. Oh my god that Uncle Bill speech! Alan's sly little scoping out of the jury was priceless as was the judge's reaction. I love this show.
Ugly Betty is also delightful. BL, UB and the SGs are the only shows that I actually turn away from the computer and give 100% of my attention to them. I like all the characters on Ugly Betty. Even the villains are given depth and pathos...and humor.
I like them all and delight in their actions. I was prepared for Alexis to be more of a mustache twirling villain so to speak, but boy, after that bar scene where that jerk humiliates her, I was cheering when Wilomena decked him and I was urging her to kick him when he was down--which she did much to my satisfaction. Also, I find the portrayal of Betty's nephew to be wonderfully done. A gay child...isn't that a first for American TV? It's such a relief to see that his family accepts him and protects him.
Anyway, it is a great show and I very much recommend it.
I worked the beginning of the week and didn't start downloading til Thursday. After I got The Bad Guys, I spent a while trying to find the next SGA ep because I really wanted to see what happened next. I mean, hey, that was quite a cliffhan...oh. It was a cliffhanger because, say, it was ep #20 and that was the end of the season?? Duh!
Mom is warming up to SGA. She had Tivo'd a diabetic program but it turned out that it was a channel that we don't get, so it recorded something else entirely. She fondly said McKay was on tivo shouting and crying. It turns out it was Grace under Pressure.
I rather liked the Bad Guys. Because I had read some reactions from my flist, I did see there were some of Daniel's lines that would have been good McKay lines, but they worked at that time for Daniel, for me. Daniel is very flexible and that situation was pretty bizarre for him, so it makes sense to me that he'd acting a bit different, getting frustrated with the situation, the people that were making things more dangerous. I mean, this is the guy that hopped up and down with frustration in One False Step, and we've seen how snippy he gets when Vala pushes his buttons. I like that he as a snippy, pissy, sarcastic side.
And I like how well Teal'c, Mitchell and Vala worked together. I didn't miss Sam at all. I rather imagine that AT was working on Roads Not Taken since the rest of the cast was hardly in that one. And as all have already said, Teal'c had the best couple of moments, the "Remain calm" and that look he shot at Daniel. Cisero was fun; I glad he survived. I must admit that I liked this one off show, a departure from the Ori treadmill, a reminder of when the team would interact with a culture instead of that culture just being canon fodder for the Ori. I am sad that the clock is ticking on SG1.
Lost is on and I'm fastforwarding through it. And I blew off Numb3rs tonight for a rerun of Ellery Queen. I loved Ellery Queen, the way it gloried in the past with long, loving shots of the old cars and all the other old sets and props. I even had to stop a few times to look up references like being as fast as Glen Cunningham (the Kansas Flyer, a track star from the 1930s.) I was reading a fannish thing somewhere about how much research does one do and I realized that the details in Ellery Queen were probably only possible because the people that remember that time period were still around to recreate them.
Another thing with Ellery Queen, I keep on thinking that there's a backstory somewhere to explain all those little details about Ellery and his dad. Perhaps Ellery had been kidnapped as a child and that's why he is so focused to the point of being absent minded and his dad and Velie are so protective, even now when Ellery is a tall, strong man. I just did a search for Ellery Queen fiction and got nothing. That's sad.