A Week of Pop Culture: Riveted by 'Hunger Games,' Revisiting 'Six Feet Under' and Romantic Comedies

Books

Hunger Games: Just got back from a week’s beach vacation with the family and, pop culture-wise, I spent most of my time, when not on the beach, gobbling up the first two books in the Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series (Hunger Games, Catching Fire). I would’ve continued on to read the finale, Mockingjay, only I didn’t bring that book with me. So once I finished Catching Fire, I moved on to Jennifer Weiner’s Then Came You about a surrogate pregnancy, which I read for a column I’m planning to write. (I’ll link to the column here later once it’s written.)

I was surprised by how much I was riveted by the Hunger Games, despite its sick and twisted premise: As retribution for rebelling against an evil, brutal, dictatorial centralized government, the demoralized residents who live in one of 12 “districts” in the “ruins of North America” now called Panem, are forced to give up a boy and a girl between the ages of 12-18 to participate in a fight-to-the-death games which are viciously manipulated by the dictators for the excitement of those watching as it unfolds on television.

Its political undercurrent – of a repressive government using the very symbol of the promise of the future, children, and forcing them to kill one another or be killed – along with the stark contrast of the opulence and fatted calfness of those living in the Capitol while those in the districts starve and are forced to live like prisoners inside their districts by electrified fences where their lives are controlled by the Capitol, was creepy and compelling at the same time.

As I eagerly move onto the third book – which my happy-ending obsessed daughter said she didn’t really like, while my darker elder son liked it – I’m intrigued by the political upheaval and the resistance in the world of Panem, given the real life protests popping up all over the Middle East and now in Europe. Not that I envision a fight-to-the-death reality show along the lines of Survivor or a twisted version of Lost any time soon, but still . . .

TV

Six Feet Under: In preparation for CliqueClack TV’s upcoming Six Feet Under week – to which I’ll be contributing two pieces – I’ve been revisiting the Fishers and their pitch black dramatic series that compelled viewers think about their lives, about the meaning of them and those people with whom they share it.

While watching these episodes, I remember anew why I was so drawn to it in the first place. It was thoughtful, edgy, risk-taking and challenged viewers’ sense of right and wrong. Plus Lauren Ambrose’s Claire Fisher and Peter Krause’s Nate Fisher were two of the best, full-fledged, well rounded and screwed up characters on TV.

Magazines

Entertainment Weekly: Once I got home and poured through the stack of mail that piled up during our week away, I found two copies of Entertainment Weekly waiting for me, including a large article on The Help and a cool piece on the keys to making a truly resonant, honest romantic comedy that doesn’t insult the viewers’ intelligence, holding recent release Crazy Stupid Love as the new When Harry Met Sally.

Some of the reasons why EW writers Sara Vilkomerson and Anthony Breznican said most rom-coms turn out to be snoozers: 1. “Chemistry can’t be faked.” 2. “Men don’t want to star in romantic comedies – or go see them.” And 3. “Hollywood romances often struggle overseas, so studios can be skittish about investing in them.”

Image credits: Amazon.com, HBO, Entertainment Weekly.

Notes on Pop Culture: Some Favorite TV Shows, Magazines & Articles from Past Week

Now that it’s summer and things, pop culture-wise, tend to wind down a bit -- particularly when it comes to fresh TV programming -- I’m bringing back my favorite picks of the week, pop culture/politics items I’ve enjoyed over the past week.

TV


Image credit: USA

Covert Affairs: Still Light, Still Fun

I get bored easily with stupid TV shows and hardly ever watch anything reality-based, preferring, instead, scripted television, usually of the darker and heavier variety. The comedy programs to which I gravitate usually have some heft and/or intelligence to them because I loathe stupid, forced crap which simply bugs the heck out of me.

I would’ve thought that by now, I would’ve grown tired of USA’s Alias Lite, its summer CIA fare Covert Affairs, about rookie CIA agent Annie Walker who has a big heart, a killer smile, a quick mind and a powerful take-down. But Covert Affairs’ sophomore season has been solid, entertaining and enjoyable.

The show is populated by plenty of actors you’ve seen before – Peter Gallagher (Rescue Me, The O.C.), Kari Matchett (24, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Invasion), Anne Dudek (House, Big Love, Mad Men), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes) and Gregory Itzin (24, Big Love, The Mentalist) – and boasts two breakout stars, Piper Perabo, who’s positively charming as Annie, and Christopher Gorham (Ugly Betty) as Annie’s wise mentor, Auggie Anderson.

Covert Affairs isn’t filled with a heavy mythology that sometimes bogged down Alias, and it doesn’t insult your intelligence either. The latest episode, which featured Mark Moses (Desperate Housewives, Mad Men) as a guest star, was a good example of how Covert Affairs balances its spy intrigue with a light touch. (See my review of it on CliqueClack TV.) 

Image credit: TNT

Men of a Certain Age: Ray Romano Packed a Powerful Emotional Punch in Second Season

The TNT drama Men of a Certain Age had its finale this week, capping a strong second season that brought each of the three, middle-aged, down-to-earth main characters down different paths than one might have envisioned for them.

Ray Romano’s Joe took a detour from his rekindled dream of joining the senior [golfing] tour to traverse down a rather dark road by doing some freelance bookmaking on the side (poaching clients from his own cancer-addled bookie, then thinking twice about it and giving up being a bookie altogether). Just as Andre Braugher’s Owen finally seemed to be gaining in confidence as he took over the helm of his father’s car dealership, he was plagued by panic attacks. Meanwhile Scott Bakula’s Terry -- the Zen, surfer dude aspiring actor closing in on age 50 -- has settled down, taken a full-time job and no longer wants to play the field and sleep with everything that moves; he actually wants an adult relationship with a woman his own age.

This past season Romano stood out as a revelation.

Magazines/Newspapers

EW’s Potter Issue

Love, love, LOVED this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly dedicated to all things Harry Potter. A fan’s delight, the package provides all manner of cool trivia about the $2 billion film series, which comes to a close on July 15 when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 hits the theaters.

If you’re a fan of Harry Potter, this is a must read.

FYI -- My pop culture column over on Modern Mom this week focuses on the wonderful message about the importance of parents and parent-like role models that the Potter series has given my three resident Potter-heads.

New Yorker Fiction Issue

I rarely buy the New Yorker. But when I stopped by my local independent bookstore – yes, an actual brick and mortar store -- seeking a periodical to bring on the airplane during my family’s trip to Orlando (and our pilgrimage to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios), I impulsively picked up the June 13 & 20 Summer Fiction issue and wound up reading quite a bit of it, including the odd little story, “Home” by George Saunders and Lauren Groff’s “Above and Below.”

New York Times & Politicians' Kids

Frank Bruni penned a provocative essay for the New York Times this past weekend in which he suggested that politicians stop parading their families around as presidential campaign props and then turn around and declare them off-limits for other people to discuss. Citing the Obamas’ desire to keep their daughters “off limits” to the media, Bruni said the Obamas also try to have things both ways. “That’s one of the problems with converting progeny into props,” he said. “It has a facile, cheap tinge.”

Citing other presidential candidates who’ve also brought their children on the campaign trail, Bruni is not a fan of the practice. “Because so many politicians make such a studied pose out of their parenthood, it’s fair to point out that jumping into the fray of a national campaign and hauling the clan into an unforgiving spotlight don’t necessarily do children any favors, especially if they’re young,” he wrote. “For all the candidates chatter about building a better tomorrow for their kids, they may be building a worse today.”

Image credits: USA, TNT, Entertainment Weekly.

Unlike Most, I Didn't Like 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'

It’s been impossible to not take notice of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. The books have been everywhere with their unusual covers wrapped around what promises to be a compelling tale featuring a butt-kicking leading character in the mysterious Lisbeth Salander. My parents read the first book. My sister-in-law bought it too. A local book club designated it as a monthly selection. The books were turned into films. So, several months ago, I thought I’d give it a whirl.

In fact, you might’ve noticed that in my “Currently Reading” tab on the right-hand column of this blog, the image of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had been sitting there for months. And months. Usually it doesn’t take me months to get through a book, unless of course, I’m having trouble getting through it. Such was the case with this book. Damn did it disappoint me. It completely failed to grab me by my shirt collar and demand that I ignore everything else and read it. (The last time a book did this to me was when I re-read The Great Gatsby last year and couldn’t stop reading.)

As I plodded 100 pages into Tattoo, I was so thoroughly bored that I kept wondering what all the fuss was about. Usually, I love books about reporters, being a former newspaper scribe myself, but with this one -- about a disgraced investigative journalist trying to solve a mystery and a computer hacker/investigator who teamed up with him -- I was struggling to keep my eyes open.

When there finally was some action, I was distinctly underwhelmed. The only reason I stuck with it – other than to find out what actually did happen to Harriet Vanger – was because I wanted to see why this series of book is omnipresent in pop culture right now. Now that I’ve gotten to the end – finished it when I was feeling a bit better as I battled with the flu germs which were harassing me – I still don’t understand why this book is such a hit. (I can’t speak for the other two books – The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – since I haven’t read them and doubt that I ever will.)

Then I read this post from Entertainment Weekly’s Henry Goldblatt who wrote a wry commentary about the phenomenon of the series saying:

“I hate The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. To many, that is the equivalent of saying, ‘I kick puppies,’ or ‘I choke babies,’ or ‘American Idol is the best show in the history of television.’ Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s crime trilogy about crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his hacker lover/pal Lisbeth, in my view, is poorly written, ridiculously plotted and (yawn!) incredibly tedious.”


Anyone else out there find the Tattoo book didn’t live up to the hype?

In the meantime, I’ve started a classic which I’ve never read and, for some reason, think it’s now time that I do: Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.
I’m also toying with the idea of tackling a whole bunch of classics which I’ve never read this year, or ones which I read in high school and didn’t fully comprehend at the time, but haven’t wholly bought into the idea.

Image credits: Entertainment Weekly and Audio Editions.

Jon Hamm #2 on EW's Entertainers of the Year

Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

From his 30 Rock cameos and his hardnosed law enforcement officer in The Town, to his joyously funny Emmy song and dance "Born to Run" routine and his painful portrayal of the complicated Don Draper on Mad Men, Jon Hamm has had one helluva year.

He's shown he can crack wise on TV with the award winning Tina Fey. He can be goofy with the likes of Betty White, such as when he "taught" her how to dance during the Emmy Awards' opening bit. He can sing. He can dance. He can smolder. He can cry. He can say, "What" in a thousand different ways . . . which is why Entertainment Weekly placed him at number two on their entertainers of the year list. (Taylor Swift topped the list, which thrilled my 12-year-old daughter.)

In the amusing accompanying article Hamm said of 2010: "My eternal pessimist comes out whenever things get as good as they have been. However,  I will say that 2010 was the best year I will ever have.”

Image credit: Michael Muller/Entertainment Weekly.

Gryffindor Trio Share 'Harry Potter' Experiences with Magazine

The three, young, seemingly well adjusted stars of the Harry Potter films -- who’ve spent the last 10 years of their lives on camera -- gave great interviews to Entertainment Weekly about their experiences playing Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley for half their lives. (It's worth noting that none of these three actors have been involved in scandals, under-aged drinking and drug-taking incidents or other bad behavior during this period.)

Best parts of the EW interviews:

-- Daniel Radcliffe, 21, said he was in the bath when his family got the news that he’d been selected to play Harry Potter. Then he cried. He was 11 years old. “It was probably the best moment of my life,” Radcliffe told the magazine.

-- Actress Helena Bonham Carter, who plays Bellatrix Lestrange, said of Rupert Grint, 22, (Ron Weasley), “He’s a bit like Luna Lovegood, you know? He’s on his own moon.” Then the article described how Grint bought an ice cream truck after he got his driver’s license. Seriously.

-- EW also put together a video of the child-actors’ facing aging from the first Potter film to the last.
Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

I Want to See 'The Town' Next Week, Who's With Me?

There are several reasons why I'm anxious to see The Town in the theaters when it opens next week:

1. It features the fabulous Jon Hamm of Mad Men.

2. It's set in Boston.

3. It has scenes from Fenway Park.

4. Its screenplay was co-written and directed by Ben Affleck.

5. Entertainment Weekly gave the movie an A- saying, "Affleck the actor, meanwhile, does his best work playing flawed characters, surrounded by strong colleagues."

The reviewer, Lisa Schwarzbaum also observed, "The Town is like . . . a rich, dark, pulpy mess of entanglements that fulfills all the requirements of the genre, and is told with an ease and gusto that make the pulp tasty. Mad Men's Jon Hamm is solid as a he-means-business FBI guy . . . The Town is the good work of a guy on a path of discovery, with Boston as the artist's own Freedom Trail."

6. A reviewer from Variety wrote: "The behind-the-camera talent Ben Affleck displayed so bracingly in Gone Baby Gone is confirmed, if not significantly advanced, in The Town. Again proving a fine director of actors (this time with himself in a starring role), Affleck delivers another potent, serious-minded slice of pulp set on Boston's meanest streets, where loyalty among thieves runs thicker than blood."

I'm sold, are you?

For Still-Disgruntled ‘Lost’ Fans: An Alternate Ending

Entertainment Weekly today posted a video created by the folks who run the “How It Should Have Ended” web site who've come up with an “alternative” ending for the Lost series.


The video – which is only currently available on the Entertainment Weekly’s site -- possesses just the right amount of snark and sarcasm which is still lurking in the hearts of die-hard fans who were deeply disappointed by the grotesque lack of closure in the series finale.

Image credit: Howitshouldhaveended.com via Entertainment Weekly.

What to Read Into the 'Mad Men' Season 4 Poster

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello got a sneak peek of the promotional poster for the fourth season of Mad Men.

Dapper Don’s back in a downtown high rise, not in a hotel room where we last saw the upstart Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce based. The glass walled room is empty but for a black telephone lying on the white floor. He’s smoking a cigarette and is staring out at the city, not looking altogether comfortable.

Sure, it looks like he's got a new, fresh, clean start, however Don's post-divorce life can't really be clean given that he and Betty have three kids to raise together and that his real name's not Don Draper. I really hope he doesn't become an absentee father in his attempt to start over, if nothing else, Don has always seemed as though he intensely loved his kids.

What do you get from this poster?

Image credit: AMC vis Entertainment Weekly.

Notes on Pop Culture: FNL, Alias, Top Characters of Past 20 Years & SATC 2

FNL: Coach Taylor Boosts Morale



Last week, Coach Eric Taylor attempted to address some of the dire financial needs of his ragtag, upstart (0-2) East Dillon football high school team by organizing fundraisers and writing a personal check to cover the initial installment on the team’s new uniforms. On this week’s installment of Friday Night Lights, “A Sort of Homecoming,” Coach Taylor was trying to bolster the morale end of things, trying to rally the community behind his team, rendering him looking awfully, earnestly ham-fisted at times.

Who knew that ex-Panther booster Buddy Garrity would be his saving grace in luring former East Dillon players who’d won the State Championship in 1983, to appear at a pep rally/homecoming Eric organized? Or that Jess Merriweather would be the person who'd convince her former football star father to reluctantly offer up his restaurant for the rally? (Can't wait for more backstory on that family.) I loved watching how this all came together -- as well as the speech about a “pride” of lions -- knowing that nothing, it seems, is coming as easily for Eric as it had back in West Dillon.

The other two threads that interested me during FNL's new episode this week: Matt Saracen realized that perhaps he made a mistake in passing up a golden opportunity in Chicago in order to stay in Dillon with his high school girlfriend Julie, who's mulling college opportunities on both coasts, and Tami Taylor continued to endure all manner of harassment (character assassination on the radio, vandalism to her car) for simply enforcing the school rules by sending football star Luke Cafferty to the proper school.

As this season has unfolded, I’ve been wondering if Eric really understands the magnitude of the malice that's been directed his wife or whether she’s keeping a lot of it from him, as he’s been so completely absorbed with his job that he doesn’t see what’s happening with his own family . . . other than whether Tami would be willing to cook dinner for former East Dillon football champs.

A Retooled Alias?

I was a major fan of Alias. Became quite fond of J.J. Abrams, Jennifer Garner and Victor Garber while watching this smart and thoroughly entertaining (in the first three seasons anyway) espionage drama which was at its greatest when Garner’s Sydney Bristow was working as a double-agent for the CIA while serving the evil international crime syndicate, SD-6, run by the nefarious Arvin Sloane. (The show launched not only Garner’s career, but Terry O’Quinn’s -- aka Lost's John Locke -- and Bradley Cooper’s, he of Hangover fame.)

When I got word that people have been buzzing about what they’re calling a “reboot” of Alias – an E! report called labeled it an “initial talk” about a newly revised Alias series, sans the Rambaldi element – I was skeptical. Abrams is already working on a new NBC show, Undercovers, that’s slated to begin next fall about a married couple who met while working as spies and are re-activated into the espionage game, adding a dash of excitement to their marriage, now that they're boring, staid caterers. Wouldn’t a new version of Alias be too similar? Would any of the old characters be involved? Could you really call it Alias without them?

EW Top 100 Characters List

If you were to sit down and make a list of the top 100 fictional characters from the past 20 years, who’d be on it? The editors and writers at Entertainment Weekly took up this challenge and put together a rather eclectic list. Why certain characters rank higher than others, and why certain ones were selected over others – like Tim Riggins making the list as representative of FNL and NOT the Taylor family? – remains a mystery to me. Kind of like the Lost finale. The EW top 10 of the past 20 years:

1. Homer Simpson

2. Harry Potter

3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

4. Tony Soprano

5. The Joker (Heath Ledger’s version)

6. Rachel Green from Friends

7. Edward Scissorhands

8. Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs

9. Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City

10. SpongeBob Squarepants

FYI: Some of my favorites made the list: Sydney Bristow (42), Jack Bauer from 24 (44), John Locke from Lost (63), Lorelai Gilmore from the Gilmore Girls (65), Don Draper from Mad Men (74) and Gregory House from House (84).

Sex and the City 2

I went to see Sex and the City 2 on Friday and dedicated this week’s Pop Culture column to it over on Mommy Tracked. While I’m not going to tell you that it’s absolutely fabulous – I called it an “over-the-top, junk-food-binge of a film,” a bad-good movie you can enjoy with friends and share a laugh – I was steamed by the language some reviewers used when writing about the characters and the women in the film, everything from “shrews” to “harridans.”

Image credit: ABC/Alias.tv.

EW Gives 'Lost' One Last Cover

Entertainment Weekly has given the conclusion of the Lost saga one last cover treatment. Apparently there are 11 different versions of the EW "The End of Lost" cover, each featuring a single character, except for one which features several characters in a Brady Bunch-like series of boxes. (I hope the one that arrives in my mailbox is a Jack one. There. I’ve outed myself as a Jack fan.) The EW cover package also offers something the writers are calling, “Lost: The Complete Viewer’s Guide.”

In other Lost news, there’s a viral video going around featuring Lost’s co-creators, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof and some "Muppets" who burst into the Lost writers' room. Enjoy.



Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

Notes on Pop Culture: Showtime's Women-Centric Dramedies, Put-Upon Political Wives & 'Bright Star' Shines

Showtime’s Women-Centric Dramedies

In advance of the season two premieres of Showtime’s Nurse Jackie and the United States of Tara, the Wall Street Journal ran a feature story entitled, “Showtime’s Bad Girls Make Good: A crop of shows with dysfunctional leading women has given the cable network a burst of momentum.”

Writer Amy Chozick pointed out that, in addition to Jackie and Tara, this is the network that airs Weeds and has a new show slated for this summer called The Big C, about a cancer patient starring Laura Linney. Showtime, the article said, “is reinventing itself with original series largely driven by complicated women. Showtime’s strategy: attracting big-name actresses, of a certain age and experience, who are hard-pressed to find juicy, challenging, starring roles elsewhere.” That is something I can definitely applaud, and is another good reason to keep Showtime as one of my pay channels.

After watching the season premiere of Nurse Jackie I reviewed it for CliqueClack TV and found it very promising. As for the Tara premiere, well, let's just say that I’m going to reserve judgment until I see more episodes.

Put-Upon Political Wives on TV and Real Life

CBS’ The Good Wife has been knocking it out of the park recently. (Entertainment Weekly recently ran a cover urging people to watch it.) The tension has been amped up with Peter Florrick -- the disgraced Chicago state’s attorney who was jailed for corruption and who was found to have slept with escorts -- now under house arrest and living in the apartment with his wife Alicia and their two teens. Alicia’s not sure if she’s going to reconcile with him (he’s sleeping in a guest room) or if she even wants to, despite the fact that, in a recent episode, she slept with him for the first time since the scandal broke. I’m thrilled that the show’s writers aren’t rushing things, like having Alicia simply accept his apology or have her just boot him to the curb. It’s been intriguing the way it’s been playing out.

That being said, Peter still went ahead and hired some political consultants to explore the notion of running for office again, without really talking to his wife or thinking about what this would mean to her, to have his indiscretions brought up yet again if he re-enters politics.

TV husbands blowing off their wives’ concerns for their political ambitions – including with Big Love’s Bill Henrickson – are the focal point of my new Mommy Tracked column this week in a piece that asks how much bad behavior wives can and will take when their husbands run for office. Real-life political wife, Elizabeth Edwards, unfortunately, was included in the column because she's plastered on the cover of People after her husband’s mistress and baby mama, Rielle Hunter did a high profile interview with GQ.

Bright Star Shines

While researching a recent column about women’s power in Hollywood in light of Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar win for best director for The Hurt Locker, I read that a number of film critics had heaped praise upon an indie flick, Bright Star, written and directed by Oscar winning screenwriter Jane Campion. The critics said that the film -- set in 1818 and about the love affair between 23-year-old English poet John Keats and his next door neighbor Fanny Brawne -- was criminally overlooked during awards season yet it still made dozens of critics top 10 lists for best film of 2009.

I finally saw it. (It's out on DVD.) And I loved it. Not only was it beautiful and deeply moving on many levels, it was extremely thoughtful, witty and possessed a quality about it that will linger in your mind long after the film’s last frame. Plus, it’ll make you long for springtime. And butterflies.



Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

Notes on Pop Culture: Heigl Reportedly Working on Exit, 'Grey's' Deals in Power Struggles & Jealousies, 'Private Practice' Love Triangles

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episodes of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice.*

No More Izzie Stevens?

Have we seen the last of Katherine Heigl as Izzie Stevens on Grey's Anatomy? Was that locker room scene with Alex Karev back in January at Seattle Grace, when she said she was looking for a job out of town, her last? Entertainment Weekly, quoting unnamed sources, says that Heigl is currently negotiating details with ABC brass so she can leave the ABC drama.

Izzie has been mysteriously absent for most of this season. First George O'Malley died. Then she miraculously recovered from cancer that seemed like it was going to kill her. She got canned from Seattle Grace and fled in shame, refusing to make contact with Alex or with her doctors. She popped in a few weeks ago for one episode but then disappeared again making vague statements about looking for work elsewhere.

We knew that in real life, Heigl took time off for a movie and to bond with the baby she recently adopted, but it wasn't publicly clear, until today, that Izzie may not appear on Grey's again. Wonder if the Grey's writers will concoct a story about Izzie dying -- maybe getting George O'Malley'd and hit by a bus? -- or if they'll just never mention her again, kind of like Erica Hahn who disappeared into a parking lot.

It's kind of sad what happened to the once interesting Izzie. (I know, there are plenty of Izzie haters, but -- excluding the Gizzie debacle -- I wasn't one of them.) I would've liked to have learned more about her trailer park background, about the circumstances which led her to give up her daughter for adoption. Her backstory made her interesting. I much prefer her to ANYONE from Mercy West.

Grey's "Push" episode

The latest episode of Grey's, "Push" -- about which I blogged over on CliqueClack TV -- focused largely on a power struggle between Richard Webber and Owen Hunt, Richard and Derek Shepherd and the jealousies experienced by Owen over McSteamy's interest in Teddy Altman (for whom Owen still harbors feelings) and Lexie over McSteamy moving on.

After watching this episode I'm willing to climb out on a limb and make these three predictions. By the end of the season, 1) McSteamy and Callie Torres will be trying to have a baby (given Arizona Robbins' bombshell at the end of "Push") 2) Owen and Cristina will be kaput or circling the drain and 3) Derek will no longer be chief.

My favorite part of the recent episode: Bailey's rant about how she saw no need to wax her "surgical area" and that if her male friend couldn't handle a little "nature" and "God," then he wasn't worth her time. That, and her embarrassment at the prospect of having to pick up condoms for her date, were fantastic.

Private Practice keeps being romantically ridiculous

I'm really growing weary of the romantic storylines on Private Practice this season. I really wish the characters would heed Sheldon Wallace's advice to "grow the hell up" -- including Sheldon.

The sophomoric "I love you . . . No, I love you now . . . No, no, no, YOU'RE my soul mate" blather has gotten really old. I'd much rather see these late thirty- and fortysomething characters start acting like mature professionals who hold people's lives and mental health in their hands, not like teenagers in heat governed solely by their hormones.

It's not that I'm hoping they'll all get married and enjoy placid, loving relationships, but, as I said in my CliqueClack TV review of the latest episode "Triangles," I'm starting to think we need a who's-sleeping-with-whom scorecard in order to figure out Private Practice these days.

Image credit: Michael Desmond/ABC.

Jack Bauer Grills St. Nick

First saw this on Entertainment Weekly's blog Pop Watch. It's certain to be a viral success: Jack Bauer gets Jack-tastic with a bloodied Santa Claus.

Merry Christmas, damn it!

HBO Releases Artsy 'Big Love' Promo, Premiere Jan. 10

Big Love is slated to return for a fourth season on January 10. The season three finale concluded with Bill Henrickson flying by the seat of his pants and forming his own Church of Bill in his backyard, handing out trays of bread and water for communion to his three wives and their offspring, as Nicki introduced the family to the daughter from her first marriage whom she'd left behind.

So what are we to draw from this promo, that the characters are free-falling through the air and can't quite reach one another, that everything's just a bit out of their grasp. Hmmm.

I also came across a disturbing season four spoiler recently about Margene and a Henrickson kid. (Don't read the Michael Ausiello report from Entertainment Weekly if you don't want a plot turn spoiled.)

'thirtysomething' DVD Release Garnering Lots O'Attention

Everybody's got thirtysomething fever. I tell ya . . .

The thirtysomething gang of seven reunited on the set of Good Morning America to talk about the impact of their insightful, moving drama on pop culture as the first season of the show has now been released on DVD this week.

NPR's Talk of the Nation featured five members of the cast in a lengthy interview. It's a really great chat which I recommend.



A writer likened the Melissa Steadman character to a pre-cursor to Carrie Bradshaw. Hmm. . .

The Los Angeles Times mused on the Baby Boomer juggernaut.

The Washington Post, in reviewing the DVD set, said the show "still works remarkably well as a piece of relatable, well-acted and adult television, a program that -- contrary to popular opinion -- was more than just a whinefest."

The New York Times had a long Q&A with thirtysomething crew members, saying the show "perfectly captured the intimate details of the baby boomer lifestyle in ways no network series had previously, and sparked intense debate about its merits."

Entertainment Weekly gave the DVD set an A.

The Associated Press interviewed several of the stars (see below):

'Mad Men' Reviews, 'Morning Joe' Cast as 'Mad Men,' Plus Hamm's Early Acting Gigs

Mad Men season three premiere reviews are starting to roll in -- for those lucky folks who got advanced media screeners -- and the reviews appear to be really good, as good as I expected they'd be. Which only means my expectations for Sunday night's episode are now, oh, I don't know . . . sky high?

From the New York Times, Alessandra Stanley: "Even more than in the first two years, this new season, which begins on Sunday on AMC, stresses the less amusing side of that innocence, leading viewers to look back, aghast at, and enthralled by, a world so familiar and so primitive. Characters on Mad Men struggle in shame and secrecy with the very things that today are openly, incessantly boasted and blogged about: humble roots, broken homes, homosexuality, unwed motherhood, caring for senile parents."

Boston Globe, Matthew Gilbert: "Sunday's hour is, like many episodes of Mad Men, quiet on the surface. There are pauses in conversation, and almost no soundtrack music fills the silences and emotional vacancies. And yet the subject matter of this show shouts at you the more you think about it, the more the characters don't say what you know they are feeling. In even the smallest details -- watch how a stick pin travels through the episode -- Mad Men remains TV at its most artful. Like Don Draper, it's beautiful, stealthy, trouble, and, above all, addictive."

Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker (who gave the episode an A-): "The third-season premiere of Mad Men is chock-full of revelations about familiar characters and fresh details about newly introduced ones, as well as the sort of specifics and symbolism that creator Matthew Weiner layers into every episode like a top Top Chef. As with so much about Mad Men, some of it is overheated but never half-baked, and the opening hour rises like a nearly flawless souffle of sex and salesmanship." (I'm in love with that phrase, "flawless souffle of sex and salesmanship." Wish I'd come up with it.)

Los Angeles Times, Robert Lloyd: "That nothing much seems to be happening -- and happening slowly at that, to the frustration of some viewers -- means that small moments play large; it's television as Japanese tea ceremony. Characters are built gradually through action, not declaration, and that action might stray far from what is eventually revealed as the main point. There are those who find this all precious beyond belief -- with an average of only 1.8 million viewers an episode last season, this is a series that would not survive at all on broadcast television -- but I find it quite beautiful more often than not."

Meanwhile, people are having a bit of fun with all of this Mad Men mania leading up to the season three premiere, in particular, the folks at Mediaite who took the crew from MSNBC's Morning Joe and assigned them roles on Mad Men, casting the show's namesake, Joe Scarborough as Don Draper, Mika Brzezinski as Joan Holloway and Willie Geist as the slimy Pete Campbell. Of Scarborough, writers Rachel Sklar and Glynnis MacNicol observed:

"Scarborough, a former Congressman, is certainly no stranger to selling, nor does he lack for Draper-esque confidence. We've noticed he's traded in his zipper sweatshirts for dark suits of late, but that's not all it is -- of any character on Morning Joe, he's the one we can most easily see sitting in a darkened bar with a glass of something amber at his side. Besides, couldn't his book [The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise] on the GOP just as easily have been called Meditations on an Emergency?"

Over on BuzzFeed, they must've taken a little visit to IMDB to look up Jon Hamm's acting roles and listed his top six acting gigs, including the time he was Lorelai Gilmore's most boring date ever on the Gilmore Girls and when he was a firefighter on Providence before the days of Denis Leary as an alcoholic firefighter with a death wish.

Image credit: Frank Ockenfels/AMC.

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.

Introducing: Suburban Mom's Pop Culture Week

I've always been interested in the weekly feature on Whitney Matheson's blog Pop Candy called "This Week in Pop," in which she tells her readers what things, pop culture-wise, she's reading/watching/listening to, etc. It tends to generate some discussion amongst her readers about their pop culture consumption.

So I've decided to do my own version of a weekly list here on this blog. I'm, cleverly enough, calling it, "Suburban Mom's Pop Culture Week." (I know. Title stinks. However if I come up with something with a little more pizazz, you'll be the first to know.) My list will include stuff I'm watching/reading for both business and pleasure.

TV:

-- Watched the latest two episodes On Demand of Edie Falco's Nurse Jackie on Showtime. Her storyline, particularly when it comes to her oldest, anxious daughter, is becoming insidiously nuanced. Three episodes in, I'm hooked.

-- I set the DVR to record TNT's second episode of HawthoRNe (with Jada Pinkett Smith and former Alias hottie Michael Vartan) but it didn't record the show for some reason. Maybe it's the 2,000 episodes of Sonny with a Chance, Jonas episodes and repeats of the Clone Wars cartoons that are clogging up the DVR queue. I'm going to have to watch the new episode online to see how the tone compares to the pilot.

-- Rescue Me. Man, this show is getting as dark and sticky as molasses . . . that's when it's not being interrupted by odd musical numbers starring Sean Garrity in top hat and tails. More on Rescue Me and Tommy Gavin's return to the bottle in a separate blog entry.

-- Da Sox. As in, the Boston Red Sox. You might as well consider this an omnipresent entry on the list. The Sox. On NESN.

Books:

-- I'm working on a column about Hollywood moms so I'm in the middle of reading Tori Spelling's Mommywood. (Seriously, it's for a column . . . to which I'll link in this space later.) I'll also be re-reading a book I read a few years ago, Motherhood and Hollywood by Patricia Heaton for comparison's sake.

-- Although I've got the Mad Man-inspired book of poetry, Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara on my nightstand waiting to be parsed, I went to the movies this weekend with the kiddos (see next item) and saw the trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I read the book last summer and am a bit fuzzy on the details as I zipped through it fairly quickly, so in preparation for the big movie release on July 15, I'm re-reading it.

Magazines:

-- Just read a piece about Jada Pinkett Smith in Redbook about how she and husband Will keep their sex lives spicy. (Key: A change of venue.)

-- Am waiting for a good time to thoroughly read the "Living by the Numbers" package of stories in Wired.

-- Perused Entertainment Weekly's "must list" for summer pop fare. Meryl Streep's new movie about Julia Child looks promising.

Movies:

-- Went to see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian over the weekend with The Spouse, the kids and my parents. It was just okay, though the kids laughed, some belly laughs. We'd visited the Air & Space Museum in DC a few summers ago so they remembered some of the exhibits and monuments which were shown in the film. Afterward, they actually asked questions about General Custer and Teddy Roosevelt. If anything, at least the movie sparked a discussion about American history, albeit a minor discussion.

-- The Netflix DVDs sitting by the TV: The Bourne Ultimatum and Frost/Nixon.

-- The Spouse and I caught the last third of Little Miss Sunshine on cable TV over the weekend. I've forgotten how good that movie is. The ending was truly a surprise the first time I saw it.

What are you watching/reading/listening to this week?

Image credit: Scholastic.

Entertainment Weekly's Fatherly Flicks

In honor of Father's Day this weekend, Entertainment Weekly is out with a list of the top 24 movies to watch with dad.

I'd already been thinking about dads and movies when I read this online because, just last night I bought my father three DVDs of films I thought he'd really like: Field of Dreams, Bull Durham and Hoosiers. (Yes, we're a sports-fan family.) I've watched all of these films, albeit a long time ago, with my dear old dad, and to me, they have a special meaning. (No, I'm not worried about revealing my father's Father's Day gift in this space because he doesn't read anything that's online unless my mother prints it out for him. Mom, please don't print this one out, 'kay?)

However only one of the classic films I bought made it onto Entertainment Weekly's dad-kid movies list: Field of Dreams, which came in at number 17. My father's all-time favorite flick, The Godfather -- which he watches every, single, time he stumbles upon it on TV -- only made it to number 15.

The EW list is eclectic and unconventional. Here's the top 10:

1. Paper Moon (Starring the father-daughter combo of Ryan and Tatum O'Neal.)
2. Revenge of the Nerds
3. The Champ
4. Father of the Bride (This came out at the same time I was getting married, so it reliably makes my dad teary-eyed.)
5. Elf (One of my new favorite Christmas movies.)
6. Return of the Jedi ("Luke, I am your fa-a-a-theeer." I know, Darth Vader uttered that line in The Empire Strikes Back, but in the last final Star Wars movie, Luke and Darth made amends, hence it landing on this list.)
7. Say Anything (Have boombox, will travel.)
8. Wall Street (I don't get this one. Seriously.)
9. Rudy
10. Full Metal Jacket

If you were going to make up a top 5 list of the best films to watch with your dad, which movies would be on it?

Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

'Medium' SEASON Finale Tonight, Season Six'll Be on CBS in Fall

Regardless of the promos you might have seen on NBC for tonight's season finale of the Patricia Arquette drama Medium (like the one from YouTube above), it's NOT the end of the show. Medium will live on in the fall on CBS.

In case you haven't heard . . . there was quite the hullabaloo last month when NBC decided to cancel the five-year-old show in which Arquette plays medium Allison Dubois who helps the Phoenix district attorney solve crimes by talking to the dead or dreaming about stuff that helps folks nab the bad guys. Calling the show "aging," an NBC exec (on a network which, by the way, renewed the nearly 19-year-old Law & Order) said Medium's fans were not vocal enough in their support of the show.

So I dedicated my Pop Culture & Politics column this week to Medium, whose season ends tonight, and why I've recommended it to others. There's Arquette's character Allison who provides one of the best working mom role models on TV as she and her husband Joe Dubois (Jake Weber) balance careers, three children and the crazy-busyness of the lives of families with young kids. As the family has coped with a layoff, the successes/failures of entrepreneurship and having to take a job that requires one spouse to live away from the family for a few days a week in order to feed said family and keep the house, Medium has offered a solid depiction of a middle class American family, except for the talking to ghosts/nabbing criminals angle. Then there's Allison and Joe Dubois, who an Entertainment Weekly writer dubbed "TV's best married couple." (Plus Joe is "without question, one of the outstanding husbands and fathers to ever grace television," according to E! Online's Jennifer Godwin.)

As I say in the column: What's not to love?