foray into network tv land

DH and I have done something unusual this fall. We've started watching network television series other than 24! How odd. I don't even remember how it started. But for some reason, back in September, we set up some season passes on the TiVO. Now after we tuck the kids in, we snuggle on the couch and watch... whatever.

OK, not exactly "whatever", since it's not all that many shows, and one of the ones on our short TiVO list has already been axed (the Nightstalker remake, which was inexplicably both pretty and grim, and didn't have the guts to come out and assign supernatural characteristics to anything, which was a betrayal of the basic premise of the show. It deserved the ax.)

So here's what's left (for now):
[Warning: audio on most links!]

Surface, NBC Mondays: I'm not sure how much longer we're going to keep watching this. We only watch this because we can TiVO it; we would certainly never schedule around it. There is not one single likeable character on this show, and most of them are either stupid or obnoxious or both. Lake Bell has a great body but needs an eyebrow wax and a brain implant: for a PhD scientist, she's awfully stupid, not to mention rather cavalier about her kid. The only characters I detest more than Lake's are the parents of the kid who hatched Nimrod, one of the "Surface" critters. They're completely vile, and with parents like that, it's no wonder the kid himself trusts no one except his best friend, and would never consider confiding in an adult. Then there's the mysterious bad guy, who seems to know what's going on but doesn't really, and then there's the guy in the greenhouse, who really does know what's going on... and do I really care? No, I do not.

My Name is Earl and The Office, NBC Tuesdays: I'm amazed that I'm watching sitcoms. "Earl" just cracks me up completely. I find Jason Lee tremendously appealing. He reminds me of guys I hung out with in high school. My parents' house, while in a fine location for a summer house, was kinda-sorta on the wrong side of the tracks for year-round residents, and I hung out with a flannel-shirted stoner crowd. Oh, those boys were not as recklessly stupid as Earl and his brother, but they were just as amotivated to do anything real with their lives. Earl has a great supporting cast, too, with Crab Man (aka The Rubber Band Man) being one of my favorites. In tonight's episode he did a completely unexpected riff on the Electoral College that stunned both Earl and Joy into momentary silence. It was a beautiful scene.

"The Office" is something else altogether, approaching too painful to watch at times, as Steve Carrell's Michael is such a complete idiot. The budding relationship between Jim and Pam draws me in every time; their attraction for each other is palpable, and yet they keep dancing around it (sometimes literally). Then there's Dwight, and you have to see Dwight to believe him... I think perhaps to really find this funny you have to have worked in an office at some point, otherwise you just think it's too bizarre. The thing is, it's completely realistic, because people really are that weird.

Lost and Invasion on ABC Wednesdays: We missed "Lost" last year (just started renting the S1 dvds, we'll be caught up soon) but had heard so much about it that we decided to start watching, and we caught the last 2 episodes of the first season. Fortunately the format is such, and the internal pace of the series is so slow, that we could drop in after a year and pick things up pretty quickly. The show is beautifully filmed, and I love the large cast's interactions, and I love how the flashbacks fill out a different character for us each week. Too bad about Shannon, huh? (No, not really.)

Where "Lost" is primo, even if it has lost some luster, "Invasion" is, well... not as irritating as "Surface," let's just say that for starters. At the center of everything is a divorced couple, both remarried. The ex-husband is a park ranger now married to a TV investigative reporter who is first-trimester pregnant. The ex-wife is a doctor who is married to the sheriff, who is definitely a pod person or alien clone or something. (He may just turn out to be a useful idiot to the aliens, but he's definitely on their side, it seems.) The sheriff has a teen-age daughter from his first marriage, and the divorced couple have a teen boy and a little girl, about 5 or 6, I'd guess. This is another show in which time seems to go by very slowly. After watching Rome, in which entire years go by between episodes (no joke), it's weird to be stuck in a show in which not much happens over not too many days. What can I say? I'm spoiled.

Anyway, I like "Invasion" OK, I guess. It has more internal consistency and fewer stupid characters than "Surface." But I'll still wonder about how smart a doctor is when she thinks she can come home from work at 5 and serve pot roast for dinner, unless they eat dinner at 9 o'clock? Or maybe she boils her pot roast and it's like shoe leather, and that's why the boy doesn't like it? And who serves baked potatoes with pot roast? The whole point of pot roast is to cook the vegetables with the meat so everything tastes good together. Yes, it's weird for me to talk so much about pot roast, but it has come up at least 3 separate times so far! Someone on the writing staff has a pot roast fixation. Still, the characters are interesting, particularly the doctor, who has (most likely) been killed and cloned by the aliens but hasn't quite figured that out yet; she's getting there, though.

What I like best about these shows are that they give DH and I a chance to unwind together in the evenings. I'll make some coffee or tea and we'll nibble walnuts or chocolate and it's just nice. The shows themselves -- no big deal if I miss them. I missed them all that week I was in Houston. The networks run repeats frequently, so I'll catch them eventually, or I won't. This month we're enjoying the new episodes but I know once December hits, that will end, as "sweeps" month will be over. That's OK, too.

Hockey's back this year, and there's basketball, too. And in January, "Jack's back!" as the ads say -- but back where? I admit, I'm interested to see where they take this season of 24.

Full disclosure: we sometimes TiVO both MadTV and Saturday Night Live and fast forward through all the junk... which is oftentimes the entire program on SNL. I suppose those count as network TV shows.

(Of course I still watch What Not To Wear and Clean Sweep when there are new episodes, and I've added a new transformative show, too: Ballroom Bootcamp. It's a hoot.)