'Mad Men' Season Three Still Photos

The New York Daily News has two dozen new still/promotional photos for the third season of Mad Men on its web site. Though we don't yet know in what time frame the new season is set -- the last season ended at the conclusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis -- the images are interesting. For example, in some of the photos indicate an evolution of style, a bit different than in the first season, at least for Betty Draper. And I did notice in a couple of photos that Roger Sterling's not wearing a wedding ring, like in this photo. (Last season he told his wife he wanted a divorce and asked Don Draper's 20-year-old secretary to marry him.)

Image credit: Frank Ockenfels/AMC via the New York Daily News.

Grey's, Grey's, Grey's

*Warning: Spoilers for the next season of Grey's Anatomy ahead*

Let's dissect some of the recent news with regard to Grey's Anatomy, shall we?

T.R. Knight spoke out to Entertainment Weekly magazine, saying that, given how little screen time his character George O'Malley got last season as compared to Sandra Oh's Cristina Yang (48 minutes versus 114 minutes), he figured there was little point in discussing with the show's creator/producer Shonda Rhimes about getting George more time.

"His surprising decision came after George's screen time was greatly diminished last fall," EW reported. "But what's even more surprising is that when it happened, Knight chose not to ask exec producer Shonda Rhimes what was going on with his character. Instead, he simply asked to leave. 'My five-year experience proved to me that I could not trust any answer that was given [about George],' he explains."

While EW speculated that bad blood had been brewing between Knight and Rhimes over the handling of the incident with former Grey's colleague Isaiah Washington (who reportedly twice invoked a homophobic slur in reference to Knight), Knight said, "The danger of going back is you're trying to pin blame on somebody, and to still be rehashing that three years later would be the ultimate craziness. I have nothing to gain by vilifying anyone."

The magazine portrayed some of his colleagues, in middle of filming the aftermath of George's death-by-bus scenes, as melancholy. E! (with the exclamation point!) reported that the cast was spotted shooting George's funeral scene.

Rhimes told EW that she'd originally planned on having Knight appear briefly in the new season, in the form of flashbacks, in order to show what actually happened to him on the day he died, including depicting him as heroically saving the woman from the bus, but that he declined saying he liked his departure next to the hospital elevator next to the gowned Izzie as is.

In other Grey's developments, EW quoted Rhimes as saying that the character Meredith Grey will not be pregnant in the show, as actress Ellen Pompeo is in real life. Pompeo will be taking a maternity leave in the fall, hence Meredith Grey will disappear from the show for a while.

This news had TV Squad's Michael Pascua speculating on what that would mean for Grey's. "Season six Grey's Anatomy is is going to be odd," he said. ". . . I understand that the title to Grey's Anatomy is a pun on the medical book, but if there isn't any actual Grey on the show then it should be spun into Yang's Anatomy or any of the other characters' last names. Would you still watch Grey's Anatomy if Meredith was gone and Lexie took her place?"

What do you think about the confirmed George death? About Meredith disappearing for a while? Think it'll be, as Pascua said, an "odd" season?

Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

Go 'Mad Men' Yourself

I'd seen AMC's new cool app -- where you "Mad Men yourself" -- on a number of sites, including on USA Today's Pop Candy. Using the illustrations of the fabulous Dyna Moe, you get to pick your body type, hair, eyes, nose, clothing, props and scene where you can appear with other Mad Men characters such as Senor Draper.

After a bit of monkeying around with my laptop (I initially had trouble downloading my Mad Men image) I finally managed to save my version of me, Mad Menned.

'Army Wives:' Post and Prejudice

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Army Wives*

Haneen was used by Claudia Joy as a pawn in a Fort Marshall power struggle. A cash strapped spouse had a 'surprise' appliance party. Joan kicked the butt of a lying cheater.

Haneen Used as Pawn

So I was wrong about the bonds being forged between Claudia Joy and Haneen. (I suggested in my previous Army Wives post that maybe the writers were laying the groundwork for an adoption.) Last week, it felt very much like the writers were leaning toward having Haneen become a member of the Holden clan, someone whose physical wounds Claudia Joy could dress, seeing that she feels like she can't help Emmalin's emotional wounds. Haneen was someone with whom Emmalin could bond (they seem to have become kinda tight). Plus, it had been made to look as though Haneen had no family left following the bomb blast.

Alas, the writers went in another direction. Suddenly, there was mention of Haneen having family in Iraq after all but that they couldn't afford to pay for her continued, post-surgical physical therapy. Haneen, at least in this latest episode, seemed like a mere device to move the plot forward so she could serve as a pawn which Claudia Joy used to assert her control and influence over the spouses at Fort Marshall. It was a shame to see the issue -- the potentially fatal consequences for families of Iraqi interpreters who help US soldiers -- simply serve as a sideshow for an internal post power play.

'Surprise' Appliance Party

The sex toy party could've been better executed. On paper, having a short-on-cash Army spouse -- particularly a shy one who eschews make-up and flashy Roxy-like clothing -- become a sales rep for a "marital aide" company could've been much, much funnier. Did the nature of the products being sold really have to be a surprise to the attendees who thought they were there to buy kitchen appliances? That seemed completely unnecessary. Years ago I attended a suburban party like this, filled with moms who had young kids -- where everyone knew in advance what the hostess would be selling -- and there was ample humor and loads of amusing awkward moments. The writers blew this potentially funny twist.

(One random question that bugged me: Why didn't Roxy toss out the edible underwear that the dog had partially eaten? Why was it left lying around? That puzzled me.)



Joan Kicked Butt

The best part of this otherwise dull Army Wives installment was Joan figuring out that the snake-like Evan had planted a mole on her team. She created a delicious plan to humiliate him during the War Games exercises, which beautifully concluded with Evan's "death" and having to be told by Frank to play along and pretend to be dead. Best moment of the hour.

I was pretty lukewarm about this episode, felt like the writers were asleep this week. What were your reactions to "Post and Prejudice?"

'House' Season 6 Promo: A New Direction?

During the All-Star Game, Fox ran a provocative promo for the House's sixth season premiere in September.

When we left off last season, Dr. Greg House had been committed to a mental institution. From the looks of this preview, he's still in there when the season begins. "What happens when the doctor becomes the patient," the ad asks. This only begs questions: Will the new season be re-booted and no longer be an explicit, diagnose-the-mystery-disease-of-the-week? How long will it feature an institutionalized House? What would that kind of a show look like and would people still want to watch it?

Despite the formulaic way in which House episodes typically unfold -- patient with a weird/rare case comes in, House & Crew try a treatment, it doesn't work, they learn something about the patient/patient's family, they try something else, it doesn't work but in the nick of time, they (usually House) figure it out and the patient (nine times out of 10) survives -- I've been drawn to the complex characters, not the cases. Having a show built around a caustic medical genius who maintains a friendship with a nice, doormattish kind of guy, supported by a cast of people who love/hate the main character, is the makings of good drama. What happens when you put that central character in an asylum?

'Lost' Creators Give Fans Some Love at Weekend's Comic Con

"Lost exists because of you and for you." -- Damon Lindelof, Lost creator/writer/producer.

I'd never imagine that I'd ever be interested in anything that happens at the Comic Con. Sure, I've liked sci-fi in the past. As a kid I loved all things Star Wars. I've previously written about my shameless fandom for the action/sci-fi-ish J.J. Abrams show Alias, completely getting into the whole Rambaldi <0> thing.

However when Lost first came along, I initially said I didn't want to watch some TV show that I thought was just about a plane crash and polar bears in the jungle. It didn't sound appealing. Then a friend who has exquisite pop culture taste -- we'd bonded over epic discussions about Alias and 24 -- told me to watch Lost. I would love it, she promised. After hearing me ponder my friend Stacey's recommendations, The Spouse eventually bought me the first season DVD collection. Then, as they say, I was hooked.

While I wouldn't put myself in the obsessed fan category -- defined as someone who spends hours upon hours pouring over the minutia of everything in the show, knowing every episodes' details by heart . . . which means some die-hards would say I'm not really a fan . . . whatever -- I'm more into the meta-stories, the character development and the intriguing religious and political theory threads running through the episodes. I find all these things fascinating and would gamefully discuss them at length over a beer. That being said, it would've been interesting to have attended the Lost panel at Comic Con in San Diego over the weekend where the show's creators paid tribute to Lost fans and dropped a few pseudo-spoilerish tidbits, or red herrings as the case may be.

This is the first part of the Lost session, via YouTube:



Here's Part 2, which DOESN'T contain images painted on black velvet but does contain info about Daniel Faraday, who'll be in the sixth season. In this panel segment, Lost creator/writer/producer Carlton Cuse likened each TV season to a book, similar to a Harry Potter-esque installment in a series. I really liked the fact that in this segment, Jorge Garcia was, once again, the voice of the audience, asking, in a terribly tongue-in-cheek fashion, whether all the questions raised in the show will be answered:



Part 3 of the panel featured Cuse promising we'll get the backstory for Richard Alpert in the final season, confirming that Juliet will appear again (though he didn't say in what form), and adding that we won't be seeing a whole lot more about the Dharma Initiative.



Part 4:



During the panel, they also ran two faux ads, teasing the viewers about whether the bomb blast REALLY re-set things on the island, thus preventing Oceanic 815 from ever crashing. Who knows what it really means and whether it's just trying to deceive us.




What did you think Lost fans? Are they raising the expectations too high for the final season, or does this just make you yearn for "early 2010?"

Suburban Mom's Pop Culture Week: Potter, Entourage, thirtysomething, Time Traveler's Wife

I've been mired in the doldrums of mid-summer amid inclimate, rainy days, bickering kids and having to take one of those kids to multiple appointments intended to rid her left ankle of pain. Amid that, here's what I've been consuming in the pop culture this week:

Films:

-- I took my twin 10-year-olds to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince soon after it opened nationwide. Had we not all read the book, we would've given it an unequivocal thumbs up, enthusiastically so. But given that we did read the book, it was hard not to be irritated by many of the changes made in the film version, including in the pivotal scene at the end where Harry was supposed to be immobilized by a spell, at least he was in the J.K. Rowling version. The way it played out in the film made Harry look wimpy.

That being said, I think that upon a second viewing -- when it comes out on DVD -- the kids and I will be more able to fully embrace the movie as the well done, two-plus hours of stylistic fantasy that it is. The teen actors are believable and many elicited emotions (laughter, tears) from yours truly, as well as from many other members of the audience in the theater.

-- Finally saw Hancock On Demand over the weekend with The Spouse. (Milk, which I got from Netflix about a week-and-a-half ago, is still sitting next to the TV.) It wasn't bad, but I'm a Will Smith fan so I'm predisposed to liking him. However I thought the "romantic" twist was silly and not well thought out. It could've easily played out better as a straight super-hero epic and been perfectly fine as an action hero flick without it.

TV:

-- I had an imaginary question mark lingering over my head after the recent episode of Entourage, where everything seemed to be unfolding re-al-ly, re-al-ly, sl-o-w-ly. Terrain that's already been trod is being revisited, which is growing tedious. Plus, I, frankly, could care less about Ari's business partner's extra-marital fling, though I find it interesting that Ari himself, to the best of my recollection, has not strayed from "Mrs. Ari."

I'm planning to stick with da boys throughout the season, although I'm starting to believe that this slow motion, underwater feeling I get when I watch the HBO show isn't going to go away any time soon.

-- Post-All Star Game Boston Red Sox games have been depressing, y'all. Now the Sox have fallen out of first place in the AL East, replaced by the Evil Empire. It's sad, yes, but I'm of the mind that the Sox fare better when they're underdogs as opposed to the top dogs. It's what kept Sox fans going through an 86 year championship drought.

-- I'm going to write about this subject AT EXTREME LENGTH soon, but I've been spending time traveling back to the year of 1987 with Keds, enormous shoulder pads, cassette tapes, Reagan and in which there was no internet, no cell phones, no e-mail, no BlackBerries, no On Demand. Why? I've been screening the first season of thirtysomething on DVD (goes on sale next month) in preparation for a column or two. I, a long time fan of the show, am in Michael and Hope Steadman heaven.

Books/Magazines:

-- I finished Half-Blood Prince and then polished off Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but couldn't put away my box of tissues (the end of the both of those books make me snivel), because I started re-reading The Time Traveler's Wife. (The film based on this book comes out next month.) It's almost like reading it for the first time because it's been so long since I first cracked it open. After the past season of Lost, which featured mucho time traveling, the whole notion of moving back and forth through time now seems old hat.

-- For some reason I've recently found myself coveting recipes in Martha Stewart Living Magazine which have inspired me to stray from my food rut (a rut inspired by the aforementioned kids, two of whom rarely eat anything I make). I've been gazing at the recipes, the photos of what the food I prepare will never look like and hoping that when I present the food to the picky eaters, they'll be won over by the beauty and delectable aromas. Then I serve a Stewart meal -- shrimp, chorizo and veggies on a skewer over a bed of saffron rice (it was my idea to use saffron rice) -- and at least one kid requested a grilled cheese instead. This is the reason why my trying to cook anything from a lifestyle magazines tends to depress me.

What's your week of pop culture look like?

Image credit: Barnes & Noble.

Trashy Celeb Dirt: Jon . . . Plus Galpals, Jack Bauer is Free, Mouthin' Off May Make Izzie Sick Again & Arnett Channels Judy Blume

Jon . . . Plus Galpals

I tried to give Jon Gosselin the benefit of the doubt. Really I did. I tried to sympathize with him and his soon-to-be ex-wife Kate Gosselin and the terrible predicament they're in. I imagined that, years ago, the money dangled in front of them by the cable network to follow them and their eight children with cameras must've been a lot, must've offered their family with some financial security in an insecure world. I imagined that the Gosselins thought the TLC folks would be kind to them, treat them like family, not exploit them or any difficulties that might crop up in the future. (Jon and Kate likely never imagined when they started this thing that they'd be getting divorced.) Then I further tried to put myself in their places -- marriage falling apart while the world is watching and judging, the paparazzi in ruthless pursuit -- and that Kate realized that if she and Jon divorced, they'd still need an income to support all these kids.

Then Jon "I'm only 32 and I just want a life so I can screw around and act like I'm not the father of eight," started appearing in public with different, much younger women, including a woman who says she wants to work with him to launch a children's clothing line and who told People Magazine about the cool, fun things she and Jon do together. The New York Daily News has even taken to calling the new Gotham resident, the "octodad playboy."

Jon Gosselin, man, you're freakin' tryin' my patience. Is it too much to ask that you just be discreet for a little while? For a guy who didn't seem to like being in the spotlight, it doesn't appear as though you're doing much to turn off those klieg lights.

Jack Bauer is Free

Assault charges against Kiefer Sutherland for head-butting of a fashion designer in New York were dropped this week. Jack Bauer fans -- who feared the probationing Sutherland could do more jail time following the months he spent incarcerated after his DUI conviction -- breathed a sigh of relief. However fashion designers were left quaking in their boots, forewarned never to commit any wrongdoing in the presence of Jack Bauer.

Mouthin' Off May Make Izzie Sick Again

*Spoiler alert for Grey's Anatomy's new season*

Kathering Heigl will be back as Izzie Stevens on Grey's Anatomy, after a 12-hankie, manipulative season finale that left it unclear whether she and T.R. Knight's character George O'Malley had died. It appears as though Izzie did not die. And Heigl -- whose famous complaining about the lack of juicy, Emmy-worthy material for her character was believed to have led to her character developing a near-fatal case of skin cancer -- was on David Letterman this week complaining about her first day back on the Grey's set. "It was -- I'm going to keep saying this because I hope it embarrasses them -- a 17-hour day, which I think is cruel and mean." She was snarky about the working conditions and joked that they're "very Oliver Twist." Apparently Heigl's angling for Izzie to be massively disfigured in a sudden, brutal car crash. No wait, that was Knight.



Arnett Channels Judy Blume

I don't know how Jimmy Fallon convinces celebs to do these things, but he got comedian Will Arnett -- hubby to the awesome Amy Poehler -- to read aloud a section of Judy Blume's classic, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (Reminded me of when he got Michael Emerson -- aka, Ben Linus -- to recite an ominous rendition of Little Boy Blue.)



Image credit: INF photo via ABC News.

A Lot of Trouble for Poster: Don Draper Under Water

It sometimes amazes me how much time, energy and money folks in Hollywood spend on things like a poster to promote a movie or TV show . . . how much effort is put forth for something that can prove fleeting, like this image.

And as I watched AMC's video of what went into creating the new, promotional image for the third season of Mad Men -- including making Jon Hamm sit in a water tank for two hours -- I was still amazed.



The New Yorker also has a behind-the-scenes piece about the marketing effort that has gone into advertising a show about advertisers.

'Army Wives' Monday: Onward Christian Soldiers

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Army Wives.*

Emmalin and Haneen bonded. Denise and Frank started to date. Roxy didn't feel Lucky. Pamela coached football and prayed. Joan threatened to kick some weasel behind.

Emmalin and Haneen Bonded

We saw this one coming a mile away: The two teenaged girls, who each lost at least one family member in a bomb blast and are plagued by survivor's guilt, found solace in one another. Haneen -- the Iraqi girl who lost her family and was severely injured -- was overwhelmed by the Holden's house, the size of her room (she, ironically, is staying in Amanda's old room), by the amount of food they serve at meals and by Emmalin's thoughtfulness (she bought Haneen a prayer mat and taped a piece of paper to the floor pointing East).

Emmalin appeared to be slowly processing her grief by helping a lost girl like her . . . until Haneen had second thoughts about getting the surgery she needed to repair her wounds. "I do not want [to get] better," a tearful Haneen said the night before her operation. ". . . Why am I alive when my family is dead? Why am I here when they are not?"

This prompted Emmalin's own flood of tears as she fled to the privacy of her own room. "It should have been me, Mom, not Amanda," Emmalin said of her sister who died in a bomb blast at the end of season one, as Claudia Joy tried to comfort her daughter. "I wish it had been me."

But the two girls must've talked later that evening, proved to be a source of strength for one another, because by the next morning they were a team and together were ready to head off to the hospital. I'm just waiting for Claudia Joy to file the adoption papers. You so know that it's gonna happen.

Denise and Frank Started to Date

"I just don't know how to get this thing back up and runnin' again," Frank told Denise in a coffee shop, the day after they decided to call off the divorce and try to work through their problems. It was very heartening to hear Frank tell Denise that she didn't have to play the role of the martyr in their relationship. When she apologized again for her fling, he said, "D, I know that. I don't want you to think you have to keep apologizing to me . . . The most important thing is that we never let this happen again."

They returned to a marriage counselor who suggested that they try dating again, something at which Frank initially scoffed, thinking it silly, but once he spotted Denise in a sensuous dress ready to join him for dinner out, he seemed to begin to re-evaluate this whole dating business.

Roxy Didn't Feel Lucky

Maybe it's just me, but I think the writing for Roxy and Trevor this season has stunk. It's either been incomplete (like what happened to all the radical changes with Betty's/The Hump Bar and Roxy's brand new best friend who was suddenly given keys and access to the bar's cash?) or it's been boring. The thing with the dog Lucky, who Trevor didn't have the heart to hand over to a shelter, was a total yawner.

Have the writers had some sort of tiff with Sally Pressman, who plays Roxy? Why else would they have written her character as being unlikably harsh and abusive toward the dog? Complaining about a $20 microchip charge at the vet's office? Although Roxy eventually (and predictably) warmed up to Lucky by the end of the episode, her pouting and whining got old very quickly.

Pamela Coached Football and Prayed

I've also been finding Pamela's character -- once a strong, interesting personality -- irritating as of late. In this episode, she was acting childishly about the pee wee football head coach's pre- and post-game prayers, while the head coach was a grade-A jerk to publicly chastise Pamela for celebrating her grade school-aged son's touchdown reception in the end zone. The two of them together: One giant irritation. Hated this storyline. Just hated it. It did not go where I'd hoped it'd go, which was demonstrating that women can understand, coach and love football as much as men and can prove to be role models for their sons on the field.

Joan Threatened to Kick Some Weasel Behind

In a stark contrast to Pamela getting verbally dressed down in front of a bunch of 8-year-old boys, Joan was getting taunted by a colleague who'd been favored by the previous base commander, but now that Michael's back, is worred he'll find himself on the back burner. With both Joan and Evan heading up opposing sides during an upcoming Fort Marshall war game exercise (in which Evan's already cheating by having a mole on Joan's staff leaking strategy), the smack-talk has been increasing.

After calling her weak for seeing a counselor after her last Iraq deployment ("I guess we're really going to find out who the better man is," he sneered.), Joan dished it right back to the guy who's never been in a war zone. "I know what it takes to lead in combat and believe me, you don't have it," she said. "And I'm gonna kick your ass."

What was your impression of the latest Army Wives installment?

Image credit: Lifetime.

Emmy Nominations: Where's Friday Night Lights?

While many of my favorite TV shows received Emmy nominations this week -- Mad Men, Lost -- one particular program, Friday Night Lights, got snubbed in all the major categories and I'm pretty steamed. Connie Britton, who kicked some serious Texas butt as Tami Taylor, the new Dillon High School Principal, got no love. Ditto for Kyle Chandler, who played the restrained and pained Coach Eric Taylor who had to wear a phony let's-just-go-along-to-get-along smile when dealing with J.D. McCoy's crazy dad. The ensemble FNL cast deftly dramatized the gamut of authentic teen angst spanning various socio-economic strata and had one of the most uncomfortable yet realistic feeling mom-daughter sex talks I've ever seen. Shame on the Academy for blowing off this show.

Other things that got my undies in a bundle about this 2009 slate of Emmy nominations:

-- I was pleased as punch to see Gabriel Byrne from HBO's In Treatment among the nominees for lead actor in a drama. I likewise thought it appropriate to honor Hope Davis, who played an unstable New York lawyer who was a patient of Byrne's, but it was a criminal oversight that John Mahoney, who played a disgraced yet proud CEO in the grips of a nervous breakdown, was overlooked in the supporting actor in a drama category. Mahoney acts circles around William Shatner for goodness sake.

-- Big Love had a stellar season, complex and surprising and poignant. The intricately interwoven stories took viewers to fascinating places. Hence it was great to see the HBO drama receive a best drama nomination, but curiously, none of the individual actors or actresses received a nomination. Surely Sally Field could sit one year out from playing a terribly predictable character on Brothers & Sisters to make room for one of the Big Love wives. Maybe for Jeanne Tripplehorn who had a strong season where she faced the threat of a recurrence of cancer, embraced the notion of a fourth wife, was excommunicated from her faith (that Temple episode was something) and had communication problems with her teenaged daughter who got pregnant then lost the baby. (Tripplehorn's Barb should ask Britton's Tami for pointers on how to conduct a good teen sex chat.)

-- This season's Rescue Me on FX has been a revelation, a detailed, painful examination of the long-term impact of 9/11 on the FDNY. A journalist working on a book about 9/11 came into the firehouse and stirred up recollections of that day caused Denis Leary's Tommy Gavin to give up a year's worth of hard-earned sobriety, as Gavin coped with massive personal losses in his life, so overwhelming that he worried that he was losing his capacity to feel anything. And no one, other than Michael J. Fox who played Janet Gavin's boyfriend, gets any Emmy nom love? Not even Leary, especially after the blow-torch scene? That's just cold.

-- Others who got the dramatic acting shaft: Terry O'Quinn from Lost, Patricia Arquette from Medium and January Jones from Mad Men.

Okay, now onto the positive. The rest of the major nominees can be summarized thusly: Mad Men, 30 Rock, cable channels, 30 Rock, Breaking Bad, Tina Fey, Matthew Weiner and the major networks need to take some cues from their cable breathren.

Dramas:

My two favorite shows -- Mad Men and Lost -- are both nominees in the most competitive category on the board. Every show on the expanded best drama category is top-notch. Plenty of super-quality shows didn't make the cut. It's worthwhile to note that among the seven shows nominated, only two are from broadcast networks. Here's the list: Big Love (HBO), Breaking Bad (AMC), Damages (FX), Dexter (Showtime), House (Fox), Lost (ABC) and Mad Men (AMC).

As for dramatic acting nominees, Mad Men's Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss got top nods, awards I hope they wind up receiving on September 20, although both of their leading dramatic categories contain tough challengers. In addition to Hamm, the other actors nominated include AMC pal Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad (AMC), Michael C. Hall from Dexter (Showtime), Hugh Laurie from House (Fox), Byrne from In Treatment (HBO) and Simon Baker from The Mentalist (CBS). On the actress side, Moss is competing against Holly Hunter from Saving Grace (TNT), Kyra Sedgwick from The Closer (TNT), Sally Field from Brothers & Sisters (ABC), Glenn Close from Damages (FX) and Mariska Hargitay from Law & Order SVU (NBC).

In the dramatic supporting acting nominations, I'm going to pick up the pom-poms and cheer for Michael Emerson as the delightfully fiendish Benjamin Linus on Lost. The episode, "The life and death of Jeremy Bentham" and "316" showcased Emerson's talents.

Comedies:

This category is all about Tina Fey, 30 Rock (got 22 nominations) and Saturday Night Live. In this category, the major networks fare better than they do with dramas, mostly thanks to 30 Rock. Ms Fey is having a year isn't she? She's nominated as best leading actress in a comedy, best guest actress in a comedy (her Sarah Palin bits on SNL), her show was nominated as best comedy and its writers snagged four out of the five nominations for best writing for a comedy series. Riding the Fey train are Alec Baldwin as lead actor, Tracy Morgan and Jack McBrayer as supporting comedic actors, Jane Krakowski as supporting comedic actress, three out of the five guest actor in a comedy nominees (Steve Martin, Alan Alda, Jon Hamm) and two guest actress nominees.

The other comedy nominees include: Entourage (HBO), Family Guy (Fox), Flight of the Conchords (HBO), How I Met Your Mother (CBS) and Weeds (Showtime).

In the leading comedic actor category, in addition to Baldwin there's my personal favorite, Steve Carell who was so good as Michael Scott this past year on The Office. After his work following Scott's departure from Dunder Mifflin and the starting the short-lived Michael Scott Paper Company, Carell added so much new life to an older comedic franchise that Carell definitely deserves this nomination and the award.

I'd be stunned if someone other than Fey walks away with the lead comedic actress honor, but I admired the inclusion of Toni Collette who plays a challenging role which could easily slide into camp, on Showtime's United States of Tara. Rounding out the rest of the lead comedic actress nominees are Mary-Louise Parker for Weeds, Sarah Silverman for Sarah Silverman Program (Comedy Central), Julia Louis-Dreyfus' The New Adventures of Old Christine (CBS) and Christina Applegate for Samantha Who (ABC)

Anyone or show about which you're thrilled received an Emmy nomination? Any snubs you're particularly upset about?

Image credit: AMC.

Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Is It Sexist to Question Sotomayor's Judicial Temperament?

That was the question raised on MSNBC's Morning Joe this AM: Whether South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham would've asked a male Supreme Court nominee about his reputed tough demeanor in the courtroom and then inquire if the nominee had "a temperament problem."

Co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough asked author and former Clinton spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers -- she wrote Why Women Should Rule the World -- about whether a double-standard was at work with Sotomayor's questioning. After noting that of the 111 Supreme Court judges ever to hold office, only two have been female, Myers discussed the importance of getting more women to serve on the highest court in the land:

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Below you'll find the video of Graham's confirmation hearing questioning so you can make your own call on the matter. Citing the comments of anonymous lawyers who called Sotomayor "a terror on the bench," "abuses lawyers" and is "a bit of a bully," Graham said, "I never liked appearing before a judge that I thought was a bully . . . Do you think you have a temperament problem?"



Is this a case of holding strong, tough women -- who insist that those around them exhibit the same level of excellence as they do -- to a different standard than we do to men? The classic "she's a b*&%$" while he's a striving, high-powered executive with smarts?

UPDATE: Salon's Broadsheet blog puts an interesting twist on the "temperament" question, pointing out two examples -- questions about John McCain and John Bolton's temperaments -- which say that simply raising the issue of a hot temper doesn't necessarily make the questioning sexist.

The web site Feministing quoted a former Yale Law School dean who looked into rumors about Sotomayor being "overly aggressive" on the Court of Appeals and said he didn't find any substantial difference between her questioning of attorneys and male judges' inquiries.

Suburban Mom's Pop Culture Week: Entourage, Wired & a Small Film With a Kid Named Potter

TV:

-- The sixth season of HBO's testosterone-heavy Entourage premiered on Sunday and I've got to agree with a blogger from New York Magazine who said that it felt a bit dated with stuff like Vinnie appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, given that Conan O'Brien has taken the reins. Ari made reference to his agency signing the star of My Name is Earl, a show that's now cancelled. "For a show that derives a great deal of its energy from the fact that it's supposed to feel recent and insider-y to viewers, these two factual slipups have us thinking that the show's creators are committed to once again running this season on autopilot," wrote Mark Graham.

That being said, it was a surprisingly mellow, low-keyed Entourage premiere, which quietly established the groundwork for the boys to finally be showing some inklings of budding maturity and no longer acting like, in Sloan's words, they live in "a frat house." It's about damned time. The women on this show always seemed light-years more mature than the men, except for E, who seemed like the only responsible boy in the bunch, though he has been susceptible to caving into pressure to be cool and go out with the dudes. (Vinnie is JUST getting his driver's license? How much arrested development does Vinnie have?) Will something like a suddenly mature Turtle change the dynamics of the show? Of course, but change can be good. Just ask the Lost people.

Additionally, I loved the Mad Men reference when Ari defended drinking the office in the middle of the day and Lloyd quipped that it won't seem so cool when the AMC show flashes forward to the 1970s and Don Draper & Co. have heart and liver disease.

-- Watched some of the episodes from the final season of Gilmore Girls that I DVRed over the past few weeks. ABC Family, which has been running Gilmore Girls repeats for years, in June finally got permission to air the final season, the one which saw Lorelai and Christopher marry, then divorce; Lane have twins and Rory graduate from Yale and turn down a marriage proposal while she went off to cover the Obama campaign. I only saw those episodes once after they were aired, so it's been nice to see them again, though the seventh season wasn't one of my favorites. Whenever I catch episodes from the first two seasons, I realize how much of that distinct, fresh, quirky something the later seasons were missing.

-- Are money and ratings the only reasons for the MLB All-Star Game to start at 8 p.m.? (Actually, the first pitch didn't happen until 8:50 p.m.) If this is supposed to be "America's favorite pastime," why is it on TV so late? Why can't it take place on a weekend day so that kids and people who work for a living can watch it? My children went to bed at 10 p.m. and only were able to catch an hour of actual play. (I DVRed the rest of it for them and they'll watch it later.) I'm completely on board with a column Stephen King wrote a while back in Entertainment Weekly lamenting this late-night practice and how TV had "ruined" baseball.

-- I'm eagerly anticipating the arrival -- via snail mail -- of Mad Men's season two DVDs. (Is it time for that show to premiere yet?) I'll be sure to post here after I've soaked it all in.

Films:

-- There's a minor movie that just came out last night, at midnight to be exact. You might've heard of it. The lead character's name is something like Palmer? Or Puddy?

My twin 10-year-olds have been literally counting down the hours until we go to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince tomorrow afternoon (tomorrow's the earliest when we can get someone to watch our nearly 8-year-old for whom I believe the film might be too intense). I must admit that I'm kind of psyched to see it as well. Brings out the kid in me. Here's to hoping the film's solid.

-- Over the weekend, The Spouse and I watched Iron Man with Robert Downey Jr. This was one of the films he'd added to our Netflix queue after he found the list to be too heavy with thinky, independent films, TV shows (The West Wing's on the list), romantic comedies and kids' fare. He joked that he'd injected more action-oriented testosterone into the list.

When we sat down to watch Iron Man, I fully expected to hate it, but surprisingly didn't. In fact, I found it very entertaining -- I had no idea there was an Iraq/military arms supplier backstory -- and stayed awake throughout the entire thing. (This is significant because we didn't start the movie until 10 p.m. after a long day of running around with the three kids.) The other Netflix movie sitting next to the TV: Milk. Might have to ply The Spouse with some caffeine beforehand.
Books/Magazines:

-- I finally finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and have commenced my second pass through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'd forgotten how deeply depressing the seventh book of the Potter series is. Nothing but downer after downer. Bleakness everywhere. Kind of puts me in a dour mood. In that world, it sucks to be Harry Potter.

-- I just got the August issue of Wired Magazine in the mail and found it to be packed with intriguing stories and blurbs. (FYI: My liking it has nothing to do with the fact that Brad Pitt is on the cover.) There are pieces on the etiquette of social media -- like should you follow your boss and your boss's boss on Twitter AND friend them on Facebook? -- and a brief musing on something I'd never heard of: a single-serving web site.

What's on your Pop Culture agenda this week? You planning on seeing THE movie of the summer?

Image credit: Warner Brothers via the Examiner.

It's Coming . . . 'Mad Men's' Third Season

And here's the AMC art to prove it.

Image credit: AMC via the New York Post.

'Army Wives' Monday: Family Readiness

* Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Army Wives *

While the title of this episode was "Family Readiness," I think a better title would've been "Power Struggles . . . and Hey, Denise and Frank Got Back Together." Other title suggestions could be, "Let's All Act Passive-Aggressively Toward Our Spouses and Didja Hear About Denise and Frank?" Speaking of which . . .

Denise and Frank

The reunion of Denise and Frank overshadowed everything else that happened in the episode. The way their story was built up, with the soft music and the longing, heartfelt glances, if those two had not reunited, I would've been mighty steamed.

There was Frank looking forlorn in his bedroom after Denise moved out, peering in her empty closet, handling the family heirloom locket he'd given her -- their wedding photo inside, and breaking into tears. Then there was the sadness that seemed to be oozing out of Denise's pores when she was packing up her things and moving out of the house. She told Claudia Joy, "I had this overwhelming desire to put on one of Frank's T-shirts and crawl into our bed and smell him on our pillows and to fall asleep feeling safe again."

I suppose it takes a serious threat to a marriage to make you realize the things that made you fall in love with the person in the first place, make you remember the good times. Will this saved-from-the-brink 20-year-marriage have a happy ending? Can it erase the difficulties that they've had, like for example, the disagreement over the changes in Denise's life and her desire to be more independent while Frank wanted her to remain the same gal he'd married?

At least we know that Denise'll be back in the Fort Marshall fold, but she'll need a job, as I don't think the hospital will be taking her back any time soon.

Chase and Pamela

Talk about lack of communication, the Morans were suffering from this in spades, as well as a major case of passive aggression.

Consider this exchange after Chase unilaterally announced that he was going to Texas for six weeks for a voluntary training session soon after he got home. When Pamela asked him why he decided to leave again so quickly when he didn't have to, he said, "It's pretty obvious I'm not really needed around here . . . Ever since I came home, everything I do is wrong. I throw bottles in the wrong trash can. I put clothes in the wrong part of the closet. . . I can't even find things in my drawer."

This set Pamela off: "Chase, I moved this whole house all by myself. Do I get so much as a 'thank you?' No! You just complain about the furniture."

"It's furniture that I paid for okay?"

"Oh," she said, "you do NOT want to go here."

"I can't even take my own son to football practice. I can't even control my own schedule," he said, referring to the fact that Pamela's now coaching football and he had to take his daughter to ballet class.

"You can't just come back in and take over," Pamela said.

In a move I completely did not buy, Chase apologized to Pamela in the middle of Roland and Joan's baby's christening. "It's gotta be hard to be both mom and dad when I'm gone," he said. "I called off my trip to Fort Hood." Something tells me that it just can't be that easy to paper over the Moran family power struggle with a single kiss on the hand.

Claudia Joy and Michael

Claudia Joy made a decision, get this, without Michael's advance okay. She agreed to have an injured Iraqi girl who needs surgery -- whose family risked and subsequently lost their lives via a bomb blast for serving as interpreters for the Army -- stay at the Holdens' house. Claudia Joy felt a special kinship to the lost girl and agreed to take her in, no doubt thinking about how she lost her own daughter in a bomb blast. When Claudia Joy first raised the subject to Michael, he vigorously objected, until she informed him that it was already a done deal. "Michael, it's the right thing to do," she said.

What did you think of the recent Army Wives' episode, particularly the Denise and Frank reunion?

Image credit: Lifetime.

Parents of Teen in the Infamous "Leering" Photo Reportedly Furious

The parents of the 17-year-old high school student who appears to have had her behind ogled during the G8 summit last week by Nicholas Sarkozy and maybe/maybe not Barack Obama (you've got to see the video tape before making a call on Obama) are livid that their daughter, who they described as "timid and ashamed of her body" and "dedicated to helping the poor, not to seducing world leaders," is at the center of an international booty scandal.

The New York Post caught up with her parents, who are seriously steamed. The Post quoted her father as saying: "Why are they looking at her like that? This is a girl who is articulate and intelligent and just wants to to the right thing. Instead, they are forcing her into a negative light."

He added, "That photograph has ruined my whole family."

She's collateral damage in a tabloid world.

Image credit: New York Post.

Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Palin's Meta-Working Mom Tale & Women on the Supreme Court

Palin's Meta-Working Mom Tale

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's shocking resignation continues to generate comment, analysis and interest. An image of Palin signing a toddler's dress takes up a third+ of the top half of the front page of the New York Times, 10 days after her ambiguous July 4 Eve press conference. The Times story paints a woman who's feeling so besieged and stressed out that her hair has thinned and her friends worry that she's become underweight.

I joined the fray of analysts and deconstructed Palin's resignation in my Pop Culture column this week by saying that what you think about her and her decision to quit mid-way through her term, depends largely upon your political perspective and your life's experiences. For me, I view her story through a working mom prism.

Women on the Supreme Court

The only female jurist currently sitting on the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsberg gave a fascinating interview to the New York Times Sunday Magazine in which she talked at length about her experience on the Court and how being female has affected her experience. Among the questions she fielded was about how having only one or two women on the Supreme Court affects deliberation.

When asked why it matters to have women on the Court, Ginsberg invoked the Sotomayor confirmation hearings saying, "It matters for women to be there at the conference table to be doing everything that the court does. I hope that these hearings for Sonia [Sotomayor] will be as civil as mine were and [Justice] Steve Breyer's were. Ours were unusual in that respect."

The exchange below I found particularly intriguing:

New York Times: Did you think that all the attention to the criticism of Sotomayor as being "bullying" or not as smart is sex-inflected? Does that have to do with the rarity of a woman in her position, and the particular challenges?

Ginsberg: I can't say that it was just that she was a woman. There are some people in Congress who would criticize severely anyone President Obama nominated. They'll seize on any handle. One is that she's a woman, another is that she made the remark about Latina women. [In 2001 Sotomayor said: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."] And I thought it was ridiculous for them to make a big deal out of that. Think of how many times you've said something that you didn't get out quite right, and you would edit your statement if you could. I'm sure she meant no more than what I mean when I say: Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All our differences make the conference better. That I'm a woman, that's part of it, that I'm Jewish, that's part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me.

Once Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor was questioning counsel at oral argument. I thought she was done, so I asked a question, and Sandra said: Just a minute, I'm not finished. So I apologized to her and she said: It's okay, Ruth. The guys do it to each other all the time, they step on each other's questions. And then there appeared an item in USA Today, and the headline was something like "Rude Ruth Interrupts Sandra."

Ginsberg is likely to be joined soon by Sotomayor, who's going through the Senate confirmation process where she'll be asked to defend/explain some of her more controversial statements, particularly the Latina woman quip. One thing's for sure, the Court needs women. I cannot imagine what men would say or feel if the highest court in the land didn't have anyone representing the male half of the citizenry.

Image credit: Ruven Afanador/NYT.

Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Did He Or Didn't He Ogle That Gal's Behind?

Everyone's been talking about it.

The photo.

Of Barack Obama, Nicholas Sarkozy and that shapely gal.

DID Barack Obama ogle that woman in the way it appears in the photo that's been the lead image on the Drudge Report all day?

Look at ABC's Good Morning America's video and judge for yourself:



Image credit: The Drudge Report.

'Rescue Me:' Having a Great Fifth Season

I've been extremely impressed with the fifth season of Denis Leary's gritty firefighter drama Rescue Me on FX. It's had more than its share of insanely dark moments, from Tommy Gavin (Leary) announcing to an AA meeting that not only had he resumed drinking but that he was enjoying it, to Tommy seeking to prove that he wasn't dead inside, that he still had tears left to shed, because he could feel his thigh being scorched by a blow torch. There's been Sean Garrity's (Steve Pasquale) kidney cancer, which was thought to have been caused by the rescue work he did at Ground Zero in the days after 9/11.

But there have also been ample moments of humorous awkwardness:

-- The unorthodox back "treatment" at the chiropractic offices.

-- The we're-so-happy-and-a-walking-Talbots-ad charade Tommy and Janet Gavin (Andrea Roth) put on when they visited Katy's super-snooty boarding school, including Janet's kick-ass verbal take-down of the insufferable snobby parents.

-- Michael J. Fox's turn as Janet's psycho, violent boyfriend Dwight who gave new meaning to the word "ball-buster."

-- The sheer illogic behind the Janet-Tommy-Sheila (Callie Thorne) sex-with-no-strings troika that's bound to blow up at any moment. Seriously, not a single one of them is completely sane. I predict major ugliness by the end of the season.

-- Shawn (Larenz Tate) has been trying to woo Colleen Gavin (Natalie Distler), despite her, shall we say, daunting amount of sexual experience which initially turned him off. (Do you seriously want to know what was up with the peanut butter?)

-- Can't forget Garrity's drug-induced song-and-dance fantasies, where he donned a top hat and tails and belted out show tunes, as he lay in a hospital bed after his cancer surgery.

However it was the return to 9/11 as the source of many of Tommy's issues which have grounded this drama, returned it to its raison d'etre. The presence of a French journalist in the firehouse, pressing people about their recollections of that day and inquiring about its lasting impact, stirred the pot. The sexy French journalist, over whom Tommy and Lou fought, handed Tommy a DVD with some 9/11 footage to review. While watching it, Tommy realized that his cousin died when the second tower collapsed, not the first, because he saw Jimmy, alive in the footage. Later, as he and the writer were sitting in a restaurant overlooking Ground Zero and discussing the loss of his cousin that day, Tommy ordered and drank a scotch, poignantly leaving his one-year sobriety chip inside the glass.

In that moment, Tommy decided to resume his drinking ways. His lunatic Uncle Teddy (Lenny Clarke) only made matters worse when he told Tommy that the best way to come to terms with Tommy's father's death was to watch a DVD (again with the DVD) of family home movies with a big scotch and have a good cry. However when Tommy couldn't cry, he worried that he'd become devoid of feeling in the wake of 9/11 and the deaths of his son, his brother and his father, hence his drunken application of a blow torch's flame to his bare thigh, so he could feel something, literally and emotionally.

After the "Torch" episode, the most disturbing of the Rescue Me installments this season, the show didn't flail around in hopelessness. The very next episode was largely devoted to the guys from the firehouse breaking the rules in order to give kids battling cancer some joy by bringing fire trucks to the hospital where Garrity was recovering from cancer surgery. When a kid with absentee parents took off with the rig and Tommy chased it down in the department SUV with a "cancer kid" named Timmy riding shotgun, there was an essence of gallows humor when Timmy, who said he knew he was going to die from cancer, told Tommy that after that thrilling car chase, he could now die, satisfied.

What have you thought about Rescue Me's fifth season? How does it compare to previous seasons?

Image credit: FX.

Suburban Mom's Pop Culture Week: HawthoRNe, Two CBS Pilots, Mad Men, Time Traveler's Wife

News:

The dominant news story of the week -- Michael Jackson's memorial service -- was also dominant in my house as I had it playing on TV and am not ashamed to admit that I was moved by several aspects of it, from the displays of genuine emotion from usually polished performers, to the raw, heart-rending pain exhibited by Jackson's 11-year-old daughter. I downloaded some of Jackson's biggest hits to my three kids' iPods this week and have periodically found myself unconsciously humming either "Billie Jean" or "Wanna Be Startin' Something" as I feel as though I've been marinating in Jackson music.

Of course there was also the Sarah Palin bombshell dropped late Friday -- that not only was she not running for re-election, but that she was quitting the Alaska governor's post by the end of this month. I'll have more on that in my next Pop Culture & Politics column. Stay tuned.

In other pop culture/news for the week . . .

TV:

-- I caught up on TNT's HawthoRNe, starring Jada Pinkett Smith and Michael Vartan (Alias). I'm willing to give it a little latitude because I like both Vartan and Pinkett Smith. But other than laudably portraying a strong working mom role model, Nurse Christina Hawthorne seems too good to be a modern leading TV character.

I've grown way too accustomed to seeing leading characters who engage in anti-heroic behavior. Like Gregory House who's an excellent doctor -- someone you'd want to take care of you or someone you love in a medical crisis -- but he's got the social skills of a wasp, is horrifically inappropriate and is hooked on pain meds. (Plus he was sent to a mental institution at the end of the season.) Then there's Showtime's Nurse Jackie who's a dedicated nurse who'll do whatever it takes for a patient even if it means risking her job, but she's got a nasty Percocet habit and she's cheating on her husband. Her flaws make her seem more down-to-earth.

I'm not saying Pinkett Smith's Hawthorne has to start drinking (a la Rescue Me's Tommy Gavin), taking drugs or behaving in wildly inappropriate ways, but I tend to gravitate toward more realistic, flawed character. Let Hawthorne get a little more messy, and I'll be on board. Plus I like Vartan, did I say that already?

-- I watched screeners for two new CBS shows premiering in late September. Loved one of the pilots and need to see more before rendering a judgment on the second.

The Good Wife, starring the always-compelling Julianna Margulies (ER), Chris Noth (Sex and the City) and Josh Charles (Sports Night), is gonna be a regularly DVRed show in my house. I was really disappointed last year when Margulies' gritty Canterbury's Law was canceled after only a few episodes. That show -- set in Rhode Island about a troubled lawyer who was in the midst of divorcing her husband after the pain of their young son's disappearance became too much for them to bear -- was fantastic but the ratings, eh, not so much.

I'm hopeful that The Good Wife has better staying power. It seems to have a timely hook: Margulies plays a lawyer who gave up her practice as a defense attorney in order to raise her two children and to support her husband's -- Noth's -- political career . . . until his career as a state's prosecutor went down in flames following his affairs with prostitutes and criminal charges that he abused his office. After selling the family house to pay his legal fees, moving to an apartment and with her husband incarcerated, Margulies has to re-enter the workforce after having been out of a courtroom for more than a dozen years. She doesn't appear to be planning to divorce her lying and cheating spouse, but the sordid taint of his actions sticks to her professionally and personally. I have my fingers crossed for this one.



Accidentally on Purpose is a sitcom with an on-paper interesting premise: Jenna Elfman's Billie Chase is a thirtysomething newspaper movie critic who, after dating her newspaper's owner (Grant Show from Melrose Place) for three years, broke up with him when he said he wouldn't get married. In short order, she picked up a twentysomething boy toy at a bar and "accidentally" got pregnant. He moved into her tastefully decorated apartment because she didn't think she could, in good conscience, allow the father of her unborn kid to live in his beat-up van. Elfman's character is winningly fast-talking -- a la Lorelai Gilmore -- but the pilot seemed like was trying too hard and larded itself up with forced jokes about cougars and "young candy." The premise reminded me of the Uma Thurman movie Prime, only with too many bad puns. I'm going to wait to see more episodes to see if the forced artifice gets dialed back before I deciding whether this one will earn my regular viewing.

-- In preparation for the beginning of the third season of the exquisite Mad Men, I've been again watching season one episodes on DVD. I realized that I miss Rachel Menken and Midge Daniels. They had a lot more going for them than Bobbie Barrett, a character who I despised and who I think was an overt indication of the swirling despair into which Don Draper was sinking last season.

Books:

I'm almost to the end of my second reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and am kind of putting off finishing it. If you've read it, you know why I'm procrastinating. (I'm at the part in the cave, with the green liquid.) Once I've finished with the sixth Potter installment and feel prepared to compare and contrast the book with the film being released next week, I've pulled The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger from my bookshelf to re-read because the film's coming out next month. I haven't read it in years, so I'm wondering how much I'll remember.

What's been on your pop culture/news agenda this week?

Image credit: TNT.

'Away We Go' Taps Parents' Paranoia

Full disclosure: I went into Sam Mendes' new film Away We Go with low expectations. After having been burned by my sky-high expectations for the period film Revolutionary Road, which starred Mendes' Oscar winning wife Kate Winslet, I girded myself for a sanctimonious head-scratcher that would leave me feeling disappointed.

I'm happy to report that I was thoroughly charmed by Away We Go.

The film had its heart in just the right place. Though I did not buy John Krasinksi (of The Office) as a guy who successfully sells insurance to insurance companies while walking around looking like an unmade bed with a mop of untidy hair, huge beard and rumpled outfits, I found the relationship between Krasinski's Burt and Maya Rudolph's (SNL) Verona as pitch perfect. They portray an unmarried thirtysomething couple in search of the right community in which to raise their unborn daughter, though the film winds up being more about finding the right mindset in which to start a family.

My Pop Culture & Politics column this week discusses Burt & Verona's attempt to figure out if there's a way they, or anyone for that matter, can raise a kid together without screwing her up.

'Army Wives' Monday: Disengagement

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Army Wives*

The gals made up. Joan felt spiritual. Roxy resurrected The Hump Bar. Pamela moved furniture.

The Gals Made Up

You knew this Cold War wouldn't go on forever. The show IS called Army Wives. And if a bunch of the wives are acting like knuckleheads and ostracizing one of their own -- a star of the show -- you know that, eventually, they're going to have to make up. Just like you know that Denise isn't really going to go to Denver to work as a traveling nurse. Like the Holden family didn't really move to Brussels. The mere suggestion that one of the main characters will go anywhere other than to the front lines -- the show has two locales: Iraq, where the spouses are serving and Fort Marshall -- is, to me, simply an attempt to provide dramatic tension. Let's face it, Denise isn't going anywhere and it was only a matter of time before those unfaithful, intolerant friends of hers came to their senses. (If Denise does move away, I'll be shocked.)

Anyyyway . . . The apology Claudia Joy, Pamela and Roxy gave Denise for their collective cold shoulders (prompted only AFTER Roland called BS on their behavior and abandonment, which they continued to defend) was lukewarm at best. "The last few weeks have, um, they've been hard on all of us," said Claudia Joy, who irritated me with her disingenuousness, particularly when Denise is living in a hotel, lost her job and her life is in tatters. "Maybe we could've done things differently. I know I could have. I'm sorry."

Pamela came the closest to truth telling when she said, "We're pretty much idiots."

This "apology," along with the group hug that concluded the fifth episode, was the only bright spot for Denise who had to watch her husband Frank sign their divorce papers (effective in 30-60 days) without blinking. She'd been hoping he'd change his mind, rip up the papers and declare his love for her. But he and his pride simply signed on the dotted line. Previews for next week hint at a possible warming of relations between the two, but it's hard to tell if they'll reconcile. If they don't, as far as the storyline is concerned, Denise will have to move off the base and find work nearby in order to remain in the loop with the other Wives. My bet is that she and Frank will eventually reconcile in order to keep the core group of wives together. But I could be wrong, it's been known to happen. We'll see.

Joan Felt Spiritual

I really like the way the writers have been quietly and gracefully depicting Joan getting herself emotionally and mentally prepared to redeploy to Iraq. Now that she has a baby, everything about her deployment is different than her previous tour of duty, and Joan realizes that, hence her determination to get her baby baptized and find her a spiritual community before leaving for Iraq. And by portraying Joan as someone who's not a church-goer -- though her husband is -- but who feels strongly spiritual, I think nicely dovetails with all the emotions she's feeling right now as a loving mother and wife who willingly chose to go to a war zone out of duty.

Roxy Resurrected The Hump Bar

Betty's -- which looked like a suburban chain restaurant with tasteful, multi-colored walls and a slightly upscale menu -- has been transformed into a skankier version of The Hump Bar, particularly with the creepy new "chef," named Chief. Peanut shells are on the floor. Tin buckets serve as centerpieces. Beers are in plastic cups (which reminds me of college keg parties). A Ladies' Night with a free drink to women has been instituted and a hot waitress in a tight shirt has been selected to work the tables. That's all quite a bit of change in a small period of time, not all of it desired or approved by the bar's actual owner, Roxy.

What puzzles me is how and why Roxy is willing to continually allow people she barely knows to assume such big roles in her life. Roxy, a mom of two, married Trevor after knowing him for all of four days. After the original bar owner Betty died and left Roxy her bar, Roxy let someone who claimed to be Betty's "nephew" assume half of the business -- almost let him buy "her half" from her for a song -- only to later learn that he was a con artist. Now has Roxy befriended Viola, who seems nice and pleasant and has an economic hardship story (her son invested her life's savings in hedge funds, the money's gone and she's about to lose her home) and who has begged to work with Roxy. Roxy handed her the keys, then, in a matter of hours when Roxy was attending her kids' school play, Viola made unauthorized drastic changes and got ticked and huffy when Roxy balked at Viola's ballsy power play. This is no way to run a business, especially with someone you barely even know but in whom you've already pledged your faith. Maybe I'm just being cynical.

Pamela Moved Furniture

Just how many times did Pamela move the living room furniture back into a family-friendly arrangement to make it easier for she and the kids to watch TV together while sitting on the sofa? How many times did her husband Chase -- who just returned from duty to the new home Pamela had gotten for the family -- selfishly rearrange the furniture to assert himself as the head of the household by relocating his recliner right in front of the TV and the sofa off to the side of the room?

"So Chase is gone for weeks at a time," Pamela fumed to Roxy, saying Chase complained about the sofa, the new dishes and how she throws the football. "I look after the kids. I look after the house. I move the damn house. And he comes in and he thinks he can change everything. He even hates where I keep the toilet paper."

Between the battle over the furniture and over who's teaching their son how to throw a football the right way, clearly there's a huge blow-out argument in the works as Pamela and Chase are not dealing with one another directly and are simply behaving passive aggressively. Plus, Pamela's not big on tact.

Are you satisfied with the "apology" given to Denise? Do you think Joan will actually go overseas? What do you make of Roxy's new bar? What'd you think of the episode?

Image credit: Lifetime.

Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Palin Stuns, Resigns

If any American governor were to announce a resignation the day before Independence Day, I would've bet you a bundle that it would've been South Carolina's head honcho who would've quit so he could spend more time in Argentina snogging with his gal pal.

I certainly didn't expect, in the 3 o'clock hour on the Friday before a holiday weekend when many people were already on vacation, to learn that Sarah Palin was quitting her gubernatorial post.

After watching the nationally televised speech made in her backyard -- intermittently disrupted by the sounds of a baby and various birds chirping in the background -- here's what I gathered: Palin's angry that she's been the subject of 15+ ethics investigations in Alaska that she said have cost the state in excess of $2 million and have cost her and her husband Todd personally $500,000 in legal fees to fight. (She pointed out that the charges were all dropped.)

"It's pretty insane," Palin said. "My staff and I spend most of our day dealing with this stuff."

Saying that she wanted to spare Alaskans the money and the distractions caused by the multitude of negative attacks aimed at her, Palin said she was removing herself from the ring. "I chose not to tear down and waste precious time," she said. ". . . Life is too short to compromise time and resources."

Palin also mentioned the emotional cost borne by her family -- she specifically mentioned folks recently "mocked and ridiculed" her baby Trig -- as yet another reason to resign and not spend time on "superficial, wasteful political blood sport."

"It hurts to make this choice," Palin added. It did not appear as though there were any members of the media present during her speech to pose questions.

When her speech ended, cable talking heads and political pundits were slack-jawed. Many called her decision "erratic," stunningly short-sighted and "political suicide" to appear to knuckle under to the pressure. Others said it was the first chess move for the 2012 presidential race that would enable her to concentrate on building political support "in the lower 48 states." Over on MSNBC, they've been quoting NBC vet Andrea Mitchell as saying that Palin is "out of politics for good."

Palin's Twitter account said, "We'll soon attach info on decision to not seek re-election . . . this is in Alaska's best interest, my family's happy . . . it is good. Stay tuned." I heard Palin's brother and spokeswoman on various TV interviews and neither would say exactly what Palin's plans are once she leaves the governor's office.

Palin has been in the news as of late following her highly publicized feud with David Letterman where she defended her daughters against some of his crude jokes, as well as for being the subject of a harsh Vanity Fair piece snarkily entitled, "It Came From Wasilla."

I'm stunned and will be interested and intrigued to see what comes next.

Image credit: The Drudge Report.

Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Jon Stewart's Advice to SC Governor

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

There's a reason that's a cliche Governor Sanford. And, as a married father of four boys, it's one you should've heeded some time ago before your name evoked tsking and dark humor from coast to coast.

First you disappeared and the cable news networks became like animated milk cartons, bearing your likeness, age and the location where you were last seen. There were reports from your office saying you were hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Then, lo and behold, when a reporter found you at an Atlanta airport and you lied about what you'd been doing. Eventually the world learned that you'd been in Argentina to visit your lover.

At this point, it would've been wise to be quiet.

But you didn't. You gave a teary press conference. E-mails exchanged between you and your lover emerged. Amid the chaos, you then agreed to give an AP interview this week where you talked about "almost" crossing the line with other women and how your lover is a "soul mate." News stories have been published saying that you visited your girlfriend more times than you initially admitted.

If Sanford, once considered a potential GOP presidential candidate, has any political advis0rs left, my best guess is that they're headed for Wasilla where their job would seem easy by comparison.

Jon Stewart, among other commentators, had an amusing take on Sanford's inability to keep his mouth shut.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Shut Up, Mark Sanford
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
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