What To Watch: Wednesdays

For what to watch on Mondays (and the intro to what to watch), check here. For Tuesday, check here. Which brings us to Humpday!

Show	Net	Day	Time	Priority
Glee	FOX	WED	900	Watch
Law & Order: SVU	NBC	WED	900	Sleepytime
Criminal Minds	CBS	WED	1000	Sleepytime
Nip/Tuck	FX	WED	1000	DVR
South Park	COM	WED	1000	DVR

Glee: Obviously, the big news on Wednesday is Ryan Murphy's new hard to define Glee. Is it a musical? A drama? A comedy? Is it a parody of high school shows? Does it take itself and its characters seriously? I don't know the answers to the questions, but I'm sure as hell going to watch to find out. (for my review of the pilot, check here). Murphy knows his way around part of the genre, based on his track record with the spotty, but often hilarious, Popular. The premiere episode, aired much earlier this year following American Idol, showed a lot of promise (and yeah, who other than me downloaded "Don't Stop Believin" by the Glee cast and wore out their iPod?). School diva Rachel Berry (played by broadway vet Lea Michele) has a soaring and powerful voice, and the teacher in charge of Glee Club is winningly played by Matthew Morrison. And of course, Jane Lynch steals every scene she's in. But will Jessalyn Gilsig's (an actress I really like) one note harpy of a wife wear thin? (For her take on the character, check out this HitFix interview). How much will the musical numbers take you out of the drama, comedy and reality of the show? Will the song selections always be so pop culturally relevant and inspired? We shall see, won't we?

Law & Order SVU: This is another show I tune into out of habit. SVU is actually my least favorite of the franchise, and the season pass is designated "keep until space is needed." Perhaps the return Stephanie March and the usual parade of quality guest stars in lurid plotlines can spice it up.

Criminal Minds: Critics loathe this show, and I can see why. An ex got me to watch a few eps with her; I started watching more regularly, and found it to be an interesting, if occasionally sensationalistic and ghoulish, way to spend an hour with a cast I really like (including major crush Paget Brewster, Matthew Gray Gubler, Joe Mantega, Kirsten Vangsness and AJ Cook -- with occasional guest spots from geek icons like Wil Wheaton and Nick Brendon).

Nip / Tuck: See, THIS is what worries me about Glee. Nip / Tuck started off effectively walking the line between overcooked melodrama and outright camp, and in latter seasons completely went off the rails, barely resembling its originally witty take on superficiality and bromance (effectively sauteed with high concept storytelling and characterization). Still, we're in the home stretch now, and Nip / Tuck will return for a final victory lap, so I'll give it a chance to rebound.

South Park: Last season, with a few exceptions ("Pinewood Derby," anyone?) was just as funny as always.

It's not lupus (and other musings)

Okay, if it's not lupus, then what is ailing House? TWOP has a handy top 10 list, which you can view here. I still tune in every week, but I'm just not enjoying it as much as I have in the past. Is it show fatigue? Personally, I don't think so. I watch a lot of procedurals, and I don't really mind the "case of the week," patient of the week," "crook of the week" or "monster of the week" format. With a show like House, you tune in because you know what you're going to get: a couple of bad diagnoses, patient almost dying, House insulting everyone, exasperated Cuddy, snappy dialogue, some Wilson humanity, everybody lies, patient cured. Rinse, repeat. I do admire the chances the show has taken in the past to try to shake things up, but the results have been a mixed bag. I liked Stacy. Hated Vogler. Hated Tritter. Liked Lucas the PI. Loved the "Survivor" competition. Loved Cutthroat Bitch, and thought the show ended beautifully last season. But this season has been kind of "blah."

TWOP's list hits on many of my frustrations. Adding a baby is never, ever a good idea. I don't care. I've never liked Foreman, and get bored every time he's on the screen. Olivia Wilde is a good actress, dead sexy and I'm glad that she's going to be in the Tron 2.0 movie. But I don't give a damn about Thirteen. So what could make that worse? Pair up Foreman and Thirteen! And have them suck the oxygen out of half the show each week! Yeesh. I still watch, but each week it's more out of a hope of a return to form, than a real anticipation. C+

Quickies on a few other shows:

Nip/Tuck. The show has always run on an undercurrent of inspired camp lunacy, but good lord what's happened to lately? Christian and Liz? Really? And the less said about Eden and Colleen the better. Possibly worth watching: guest turns coming up for Katee Sackhoff and Rose McGowan (and a check of IMDB shows that they'll be playing the same character. Huh?) D+

Heroes. Okay, we all know we've been on a slippery slope since the craptacular S1 finale. Can anyone keep track of how many times Sylar or Nathan have changed sides and motivations? And is there a worse actor on TV than Milo Ventimiglia? The most recent "volume" started last week, but I think the show may have already done too much damage, with ridiculous plot holes, inconsistent application of powers, cardboard performances and flat writing rolling downhill and building up steam. Bryan Fuller, late of a far, far better show, Pushing Daisies, has returned to the writing/producing team on Heroes, but his effect won't be felt until later this year. Will it be too late? Personally, I think they should junk all the bad characters and bad actors, and just keep Nathan, Sylar and HRG and start over. (And if you want to see Adrian Pasdar on something good, watch Profit. It's on TV occasionally, and on DVD. A great show, killed before it's time). C-

Big Love has come back strong this year, with intriguing storylines all about. I'm usually not a fan of shows that heavily features kids and families, but there's just something about the quality of this one that sucks me in. The performances from the three primary "sister wives" are all extraordinary, and I'm intrigued by the possible addition of a fourth wife to the mix. A

Bones. Something has just been "off" this season. The whole ridiculousness with Zack last year didn't do the show any favors, but that's not it, as I've actually liked the rotating cast of whack jobs they've had replacing him (English trivia guy is my favorite). Maybe it's just that the fine line between "realistic" crime solving and character based shenanigans has expanded too far to tonally accept. The chemistry between Booth and Bones is there as always, of course, but last week's ep with return of the Gravedigger was a blown opportunity. A ghost? You're kidding, right?! Didn't they just have a hallucinated character a few episodes ago, and then they do that again? Or was this supposed to be a "real" ghost? I mean, the ghost did "hand" Booth things in the ship, and then there was that WTF ending where Bones actually interacted with the "ghost." What the hell was that? And the less said about the circus episode the better (though Emily Deschanel in the knife throwing assistant getup is always welcome on my screen). C

Burn Notice. Just keeps doing what it does. Fun, frothy tales of espionage in Miami, with healthy helpings of spycraft how to and Bruce Campbell. A

Life on Mars. They made a HUGE mistake with their return from hiatus episode. When we last saw the show, it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, with Sam receiving a strange call imploring him to go into the basement. When we come back, we get an out of sequence ep that didn't even address that plot development (though seeing Johnny Sack play another cop was fun, and I like the twist about Sam sleeping with the lovely Maggie Siff -- Rachel from Mad Men -- who turns out to be Hunt's daughter). Then, the next week, we do pick up the plot with the basement, adding some intrigue. The ratings are cratering, though, and the show is surprisingly not holding on to much of Lost's lead-in. I like the show, but I don't think it's long for this world, sadly. B

Supernatural. The season started off brilliantly, with Dean returning from Hell and the addition of badass "angels" to the mix and mytharc. Then, we had a few standalone MOTW episodes, including one that seemed like an equally disturbing homage to the X-Files classic "Home" and another entitled "Criss Angel is a Douche Bag." How can you not love that? Thursday's eppy, "Sex and Violence," was dark, twisted, funny and surprising. A great, underrated show. A

Vain plastic surgeon spotted in Georgia mountains

Many faithful readers remember this post about Nip/Tuck, where I blathered on about a throwaway line regarding a character's place of origin, the small southern hamlet of Cleveland, Georgia. This character, who had a sweet, naive charm and innocence about her, came to see the plastic surgeons of McNamara/Troy to fix a port wine stain on her face. Through an impossibly complicated series of events, the character winds up up sleeping with the biological son of one of the surgeons, the amusingly vain and insensitive Dr. Christian Troy (who got his MD from the University of Miami), only to find out that the same plastic surgeon is also HER father from a one-night stand a couple of decades ago, which means.....she just fucked her brother. In that post, I posed this question to my friends in Cleveland:

Ever see a swaggering Miami doc driving a Ferrari in town, stopping at the Piggly Wiggly to buy faulty condoms?

So, tonight I get a call from The Freebird, who was having dinner in a restaurant in Cleveland that happened to be located in the same "shopping center" with the Piggly Wiggly. In the parking lot, he had noticed an exotic luxury car there, with a "The U" license plate on the back. I found this extraordinarily amusing, in that Freebird remembered this obscure bit of television observation regarding his hometown and actually called to tell me about it, and that there actually was this car and license plate in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. Many of you may not know about Cleveland, but it's a really small town and the odds of finding a high-end car -- with a University of Miami plate in the heart of UGA and SEC country, no less -- are astronomical.

So, the only reasonable conclusion you can come to based on this is that everything you see on television is absolutely real, and all the characters that make up your prime time shows do exist in "our" world. I firmly believe Dr. Troy was there tonight to see his sibling-fucking daughter, who was possibly there with his sibling-fucking son.

With that knowledge of the worlds of entertainment and day to day existence sufficiently blurred, I'll keep one eye open tonight waiting for my toaster to kill me in my sleep, on orders from its Cylon overlords.

I'll take potpourri for $1,300, Alex

EW's list of Best season finales. (give them some DAP for including geeky fare like Farscape, Buffy and BSG). I'm not still totally caught up on this year's finales -- and the Big One, Lost, is still to come next week -- but thus far the two best of the season have been The Office and House.

Starbuck will show up for an arc at McNamara/Troy.

An awesome alphabetical list of science fiction inventions.

A list of the Top 10 movie "macguffins." Related: another list of "elusive objects."

The "anatomy" of a cylon, past and present, with great images. Be sure to check out part two.

Discussion of Indiana Jones' women. And a defense of the almost universally loathed Willie Scott. For the record, I agree with the writer. I think Willie gets a bad rap. The rest of the movie is so heavy and dark, I think Willie's complete fish out of water routine is a nice counter balance. And she was never intended to be a "replacement" for Marion (keep in mind that Temple of Doom was actually a prequel). Yeah, the shrieking "Innnnnddddyyyy!" can get to be a bit much, but I think she accurately portrays how a pampered nightclub singer would behave when thrust into that situation. Plus, that opening number of "Anything Goes" is hot.

The final "Idolatry" of the season. Nice homage to David Cook, good shots of my gal Carly, and the best line of the night about Archuletta: "He's a veal." (that is just priceless). BTW, I was very happy that my "coronation" post turned out to be completely wrong. 12 million votes? A landslide for Cookie? How awesome is that? I'm anxious to see what this guy does, and I'd be surprised if he doesn't approach the Carrie and Kelly levels of success.

A list of worthless additions to TV shows. A list I disagree with, partially. Of course, no one can argue with Scrappy Doo or the all time champ in this category, Cousin Oliver. And the brother and sister on Heroes were just awful. But I actually thought Nikki and Paulo had a funny and sly exit episode in "Expose." The addition of the characters may have been a miscalculation, but the way in which they were handled was great. But with other Lost fans, YMMV. I also liked Piz. And though Dawn could be annoying at time (okay, many times), I still think her mysterious and for a while, unexplained addition to Buffy S5 was an intriguing plot point. Many Alias fans - especially Sydney and Vaughn shippers -- were apoplectic about the addition of Lauren as Vaughn's wife, but I've always enjoyed Melissa George and her lips. And to borrow one of Randy Jackson's five tired cliches, Rachel Nichols is "smoking, molten lava hot, dawg!"

Good Ron Moore interview.

Could this be the start of a rebound for HBO? The series sounds interesting, and adding Judy Greer (to a cast with the criminally underused and underrated Rachel Harris) only makes it better.

They sleep with their siblings in Cleveland, Georgia?

I was catching up on a few of the latest Nip/Tuck episodes last night, and heard a reference that made me do a double take, but probably flew right over the head of 99.9% of the viewing audience. (if you're not up to date on Nip/Tuck through last week's penultimate ep of the season: SPOILERS).

While the primary patient, and episode namesake, was a horrifically ugly and venomous writer for EW (who naturally panned Sean and Hearts N' Scalpels), it was the secondary patient who caught my attention. Emmy, a young southern girl who read about McNamara/Troy and their altruistic work through the "Lizzie Grubman" (remember her?) program, came to see our docs about correcting a very visible port-wine stain on her face. Emmy was the product of a one night stand her mother had (more on that in a minute), and lived with taunts of her condition marking her like a Scarlett Letter. Of note was the city where Emmy said she grew up: Cleveland, Georgia.

For most Nip/Tuck viewers, that may seem like a throwaway line and just a reference to a small, southern town. However, for that tiny intersection of TNRLM readers and Nip/Tuck viewers, I'm sure it was a rewind moment. "Did she really just say Cleveland, Georgia?" You see, I have a few very dear friends actually native to this minuscule hamlet, including some who live there to this day (and who occasionally guest blog on a wildly popular website). My friends may know the answer to this better than I, but I can say that this is certainly the first time I've heard Cleveland, Georgia enter the pop culture lexicon in any way. Typically, Hollywood uses small southern towns as shorthand for "racist, inbred, redneck moron." Emmy was attractive, sincere and a bit naive (and had a questionable southern accent -- how hard is it to get these things right? I'm looking at you, Brenda Leigh Johnson, while throwing bouquets to Sawyer, who actually attended UGA for a time), but actually didn't represent the trite stereotype. Well, kinda.

Turns out, Matt's two dads (of which Christian is the biological father) were concerned about him falling way too hard for bombing victim / burn counselor Rachel. (side note: I didn't realize until last night that under all the make up, Rachel was played by Maggie Siff, who also plays the department store heir and Don Draper hook up Rachel Menken on Mad Men). Christian wanted to distract Matt from Rachel, and tried to push him in the direction of his sweet new southern patient, Emmy. When Rachel dumps Matt in an ugly scene and comes across Emmy in the hallway, the doc's son and newly "fixed" patient wind up doing the horizontal mambo back at dad's place. Which is all well and good, until you realize there has to be another shoe to drop. First, because this is Nip/Tuck. And second, because in the "previously on Nip/Tuck," we had a run through of Matt's cosmically awful choices in girlfriends (manipulative gender-reassigned life coach, Xenu worshipping porn star, pre-op trannie, white trash neo-nazi....). Making post-coital small talk, Emmy gushes about what a fantastic turn her life has taken, what with getting corrective surgery, meeting Matt and finally getting to know her real dad. You know, the one night stand her mom had referenced above. Her dad, who is a surgeon. Her dad, the surgeon who performed her surgery. Her dad, who is Dr. Christian Troy. Who also happens to be Matt's dad. Oooops.

Before they can even have the after-hump ciggie, Mattie has found a blog devoted to incestuous couples and thinks "this ain't too bad." Oh, Matt.

So while Emmy didn't represent the usual southern dolt in a typical way, our little gal from Cleveland, Georgia did just fuck her brother.

I've visited Cleveland quite a bit, but don't recall this being an issue there. However, my Cleveland readers might be able to shed more light on the subject:

• Is sibling schtupping more prevalent there than I recall?
• Did you ever make fun of a girl with half her face port wine color?
• Ever see a swaggering Miami doc driving a Ferrari in town, stopping at the Piggly Wiggly to buy faulty condoms?
• Do you remember any other mentions of your fair city on the tube?

This season of Nip/Tuck has been wildly uneven (and to tell the truth, it has been for the past couple of years). I still watch it out of habit, and because there are fantastic actors associated with it. But for a show that treads perilously close to camp, it wanders too often these days into an unbelievable caricature of itself. Sure, the ep that examined Rachel's backstory and haunted visions of her suicide bomber was deftly handled. And except for the hot tub scene, Paula Marshall's insecure actress was a welcome addition, as was Bradley Cooper's gloriously and amusingly over the top Hearts N' Scalpels sleazeball. But last week's collection of 70s nighttime soap vixens, with Donna Mills as a patient who literally wanted her face to look like a cat? Dear god. Don't even get me started on poor Joan Van Ark, who should have the dignity to not appear in public looking like that. One more face lift, and she'll have a goatee. I'll just ignore Sharon Gless's stalkery nutjob agent wannabe, and think of her more charismatic turn as Michael Weston's mom in Burn Notice. And the less said about season villainess Eden, looking like a reject from an 80s Motley Crue video, the better (though I probably wouldn't object to more movie scenes of her with Kimber).

Has anyone else completely given up on the show, or are you like me, and sticking it out until the bitter end?

I'll take potpourri for $200, Alex

John Byrne, comic icon that I fondly remember from my youth and his time on the X-Men, will be doing a "Lorne" gig for the new (and quite good) Angel: After the Fall comic.

We missed an ep of the new Sarah Connor show on Monday so some empty suited hypocrites could lie to us, but I did stumble across this somewhat cogent breakdown of the various Terminator timelines. Well, as cogent as timeline breakdowns can be when the producers can't even remember the fucking years clearly spelled out in the previous movies. If you're making a show like this (or even one of the movies), wouldn't you have a huge-ass white board up in your writing room with meticulous documentation of all the various timelines and key dates?

Hey, Dinner for Five has an ep tonight! THAT is one of the many reasons I pray daily at the shrine of TiVo. I didn't delete my D5 season pass, and out of the fucking blue a new episode pops up in the To Do List. Just like it should. I've almost forgotten the ass-raping horrors of the three months with Comcast and their antediluvian, ersatz "DVR".

I'm really digging the new iPod and iTunes. More sometime soon on my experiences with this little gem.

Too bad the Super Bowl isn't in Columbus, Georgia. I'm sure the prices are cheaper.

Speaking of which, did anyone catch little Wilbur's question to Christian in the latest Nip/Tuck? "Daddy, is mommy a skank?" Assuming, of course, that a child of two parents who barely have a GED between them will ever learn nouns and verbs, I'm sure this question will be asked repeatedly in Georgia very soon. (And if ya want a real answer to that one, Junior, just ask me. Or any of about 21,387 local area used car salesmen, sweaty insurance agents, college drop outs, random strangers, workers at the area free clinic, drug dealers, construction workers, pimps, sugar daddies, your granddad's co-workers, fry-cooks, or...well....you get the idea).

Nina the werewolf is getting married to a pie-fucker!

Could Cutthroat Bitch be back on House? Pretty please? Could she be the "mystery girlfriend" of Wilson? And how sweet is Anne Dudek's triple play? House, Mad Men and Big Love? Quite impressive. There are the "triple play" actors from the Whedonverse, like Jonathon Woodward, Andy Umberger -- look at this dude's credits! he's the shrink on Mad Men and has been on a lot of quality TV in addition to the Jossverse -- Jeff Ricketts, and Carlos Jacott. But to bag some time on House, Mad Men and Big Love, all from different head writers/producers, makes a TV geek's heart grow two sizes larger.

Casting News

David Anders from Alias (who I suggested would make a nice addition to my "24 Reboot") is reported to be joining Heroes. That's great news.

Jack McCoy is being promoted to District Attorney. I suggested something similar last month. No word yet on who will become the new Senior ADA. I'm assuming Rubirosa will continue as the ADA. Which is okay with TNRLM, since I like her. (#1 of "available" ADAs, since Angie Harmon has a pilot on another network -- based on the James Patterson books and featuring two former Angel writers on staff! -- and Claire Kincaid is, well, dead). Also, Jeremy Sisto (the entrancingly deranged Billy Chenowith on Six Feet Under) is replacing Milena Govich as one of the detectives.

Isaiah Washington gets the boot from Grey's. It's one thing to say something "offensive" or "politically incorrect." (like Charles Rocket on SNL, for example). But to do it in anger, direct it at someone specific (who is actually of the orientation of the slur, and not do it amusingly like in The 40 Year Old Virgin), get in a fistfight with one of your costars over the whole incident, then use it AGAIN at an awards show, then cop a sad "rehab" excuse, and finally tape a lame PSA -- well, you can't say he didn't have it coming. Then you use a Network quote about getting fired? What a total asshat. I stopped watching the show a while ago, but I can say that of all the unlikeable characters, I hated Burke the most. Well, except for Meredith. Everyone hates that whore.

Speaking of Alias, another friendly face from that show turns up on another good show. Bradley Cooper is joining Nip/Tuck.

Whodat?

The creepy, unknown mother murdering man-ho on last night's CSI: Original Recipe was none other than Matt McNamara from Nip/Tuck (John Hensley).

Yes, he was charming, creepy and ultimately the "bad guy" who gets caught by our intrepid investigators. But when there's no mention of stoned hit and runs, disfigured jesus freaks, sex change love affairs, public urination, neo-nazi girlfirends, had-sex-with-both-my-dads-Xenu-loving-porn-star-turned wife, it's hard to top. Just killing your mom? I'm sure Sean would have said "Aww, Matty, we can work this out" and Christian would have taken him out for a lap dance and a mojito.