What if 'Grey's Anatomy' was 'Webber's Anatomy?'

What if Grey's Anatomy's lead character wasn't Meredith Grey, but instead, was Meredith . . . Webber?

What if Meredith and Alex were a couple? If Ellis and Richard got married? If Callie and Owen got married and had three kids, the children for which Owen has been pining? If Derek and Addison didn't divorce but instead stayed together and Addison was pregnant with Derek's baby?

This week's Grey's Anatomy takes a little spin down the road of "what if. . ." And this spin seems promising.

What if Richard had left Adele for Ellis and became the loving father Meredith has always craved, instead of one who was AWOL from her life, was an alcoholic and who was verbally abusive to Meredith? What if Ellis never got Alzheimer's and was a loving, supportive mother instead of one who always criticized her daughter and who cared more about surgeries than her kid? How would all of this have affected the dark and twisty Meredith Grey we've come to know and love for eight seasons? Would she have turned out to be a different person?

Every character has had his or her life story changed in some fashion -- some greatly, others not so much. Based on the 10-minute excerpt that ABC has released, this episode appears to be shaping up to be an It's a Wonderful Life kind of look at how everybody's life affects others tremendously, whether we realize it or not. But instead of George Bailey being shown by an angel-in-training what the world would've been like had he never been born, we get to see what Seattle Gracers would've been like had they made different choices and/or had their life's circumstances be altered.

I'm hopeful that the full episode will be as fun as the clip.

Notes on Pop Culture: Assessing the New TV Season

The fall TV season starts in one big, mad rush as the networks simultaneously release their new and returning shows in a short period of time. It’s hard to figure out what’s worth your time and what’s not. Already, The Playboy Club (which I hated), Charlie’s Angels, Free Agents, How to Be a Gentleman (none of which I never watched) have been cancelled. Other new shows are still on the bubble.

As for returning shows, there’s been a mixed bag, ratings-wise, with some disappointing and others waging a strong showing.

Here are some of the shows that I have seen, liked and plan to stick with:

Modern Family: My beloved Modern Family had a precarious beginning to its third season. I wasn’t all that big on the dude ranch episode and the Manny-sells-wrapping-paper episode was only so-so, with Phil and Luke’s weirdly violent YouTube basketball moment being the highlight. I was starting to worry that my favorite comedy, which has been showered with love and golden statues, was losing its touch.

Then came this week’s episode and it hit on all cylinders. Claire’s going to run for town council because she’s ticked that the town won’t put a stop sign up at an intersection in her neighborhood. This has tremendous, clenched Claire potential. Cam’s sanctimonious take-down of the dad who he thought had brought two young children to see a violent movie, only to learn he and Mitchell were in the wrong theater, was priceless social commentary and Phil’s accidental bruising of Luke and his drugging of Alex were pitch perfect. Throw in Luke’s sudden savvy and I’m hoping the writers are in the groove once again. More of what we saw this week and less of Cam yelling, "Stella!" in suburban streets.

Up All Night: It was this past week’s episode of the Will Arnett/Christina Applegate freshman comedy Up All Night – I reviewed it here on CliqueClack TV -- that solidified for me the conclusion that this show is a keeper. Although it focuses on new parent experiences that have been covered many times before by many different shows, Up All Night always seems to put its new, fresh spin on the subjects. (Its major weakness is figuring out what to do with Maya Rudolph, but they improved upon her character this week.)

For example, we’ve seen new TV parents struggle with neighbors partying and being really loud while the parents are trying to sleep and they know their baby’s going to be up soon, or the baby can’t get to sleep because of the noise before, but the way Arnett’s Chris and Applegate’s Reagan coped was much different. In a piece for Modern Mom I compared Up All Night to thirtysomething, which aired a bazillion years ago. In thirtysomething, when the Steadmans’ neighbors were having a loud party, Michael ran outside to the front stoop and fruitlessly shrieked at them to turn the music down while standing there, lamely, in his boxers. In Up All Night, Chris called police about the noise his neighbors were making, but after he provided his name, he and Reagan feared the neighbors consider them uncool so they quickly got dressed and ran across the street to the loud party and pretended they’d been there all along.

Chris and Reagan are two cute, wannabe hipster parents who are simply exhausted and to whom you want to give a giant hug.

The Good Wife: Untethered from the responsibility of actually having to be a martyred, betrayed wife any longer, I’m really digging the new Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) who's enjoying her illicit love affair with her boss Will Gardner. She seems to have developed a confident bounce in her step, loving her role as the public “good wife” who’s really having fun being bad. Adding Lisa Edelstein (formerly of House) to the cast and moving Eli Gold's political consulting work inside Lockhart Gardner were strokes of genius.

Homeland: The pilot episode of this Showtime terrorism/spy drama, Homeland blew me away. Who knew that Claire Danes, Angela Davis from My So-Called Life, could convincingly play a CIA agent with a drug problem who suspects a former U.S. POW, now regarded of an American hero, is a double agent for the enemy? Episode two is still sitting on my DVR awaiting a Saturday night viewing with my husband. If you miss 24, Homeland is for you.

Shows In Between:

Grey’s Anatomy: After a very strong seventh season, Grey’s Anatomy’s eighth season has been a disappointment thus far. We’ve seen the main character, Meredith Grey, become estranged from and practically shunned by her husband because she messed with a clinical trial of his, got fired (then quickly rehired) and then, as a result, the strained duo lost custody of their adopted daughter. Derek Shepherd has been transformed into an utterly unlikable, pompous character.

Owen and Cristina have been struggling with Cristina’s decision to abort their baby when he wanted to keep it. Though he’s trying to be supportive of her, it’s obvious that something’s shifted between them, and not just the fact that Owen has become chief of surgery after Richard took the fall for Meredith. These two have been among the few bright spots this season.

Last week’s episode was told from the men’s point of view and was, frankly pretty demeaning toward the male characters as it showed them stereotypically fighting over women and work, making erectile dysfunction jokes and wielding hammers and drinking beer as a way to cope with all that was bugging them. This week’s episode – which I reviewed here -- focused on a penile transplant and used the groundbreaking surgery as a clunky, clumsy metaphor for all sorts of things, from April Kepner’s virginity and Miranda Bailey dumping one guy for another, to Avery standing up for himself in the face of public ridicule from his mother.

After last season, I was expecting more than stunts like the transplant and men using power tools. I look for some emotional resonance when I tune into this show and I know it's something Grey’s can deliver.

Parenthood: There have been several heart-in-your-throat scenes in the third season of Parenthood, notably the scene where Alex said goodbye to Kristina and where the pregnant single gal who pushes the coffee cart around Julia's office turned down Julia's request to adopt her child, then, a few episodes later, changed her mind. (I reviewed that episode here.)

Adam looking for work and deciding to take a chance with his family's future by working on his brother's passion project is an intriguing idea, as is moving forward with having Julia and Joel adopt. But many of the other storylines have left me flat: Jasmine and Crosby dating other people and running into one another is thoroughly boring. Sarah dating the English teacher again hasn't gone anywhere. Amber trying to be bohemian and living in a rat-infested hole seems cliched. Zeek starring in erectile dysfunction commercials is just, what's the word . . . awkward.

It’s been a very uneven season thus far for Parenthood, which has been a letdown because the show has, in the past, seemed willing to delve deeply into issues, like Max’s Asperger’s or Alex's poverty for example. I think my problem with this season is that the episodes have been overstuffed with tons of storylines so they seem a mile wide and an inch thick. I like it better when they keep things simpler. However I’m not giving up on the Bravermans yet.

Still on my DVR awaiting my attention, the latest episodes of: Suburgatory, Homeland, The Middle, Parks and Recreation and The Middle.
What new/returning shows have you liked thus far this season?

Image credits: CBS and ABC.

Attention 'Grey's' Writers: Don't Make Meredith Grey a Victim. Again.

I expressed my frustration with the season eight premiere of Grey’s Anatomy in my review over on CliqueClack TV, “McDreamy is dead to me.” My chief complaint: That Derek Shepherd was a sanctimonious, calloused cold fish who abandoned his wife in her time of need. Again. (A few years ago, after the house of candles and Post-It “wedding,” showrunner Shonda Rhimes had promised viewers that Meredith and Derek were “together forever.” There’s apparently been a change of heart.)

The more I thought about it, the more aggravated I became about what’s happened to one of the few female lead characters in a drama. In a mere two hour span, Meredith Grey lost her job (because she’d tampered with Derek’s Alzheimer’s clinical trial in order to help a friend), saw her husband abandon her, got her job back (because the Chief, whose wife Meredith’s meddling benefited, took the fall for her) and then lost custody of her adopted daughter.

Why do the writers seem determined to grind Meredith Grey into the dirt? Let’s review what this character has endured since she graduated from law school and began her surgical internship in the shadow of her renowned surgeon mother:



She fell in love with a man who didn’t tell her that he was married. This man then dumped her, after she begged him to pick her, so he could give his marriage another try, then called Meredith a whore when she started dating and sleeping with other people.

She learned that the chief of surgery had a lengthy affair with her mother that led to the demise of her parents’ marriage.



She risked her life to extract a live bomb from a patient’s chest cavity and then watched the guy from the bomb squad (Kyle Chandler from Friday Night Lights) blow up, literally.

She learned that her father, Thatcher Grey, had created a brand new family and had doted on his daughters, while Meredith never saw him once he divorced her mother.



Her Alzheimer-ridden mother Ellis, who’d ignored her daughter for most of her life, told Meredith in one of her rare, final moments of lucidity that Meredith had disappointed her because she was “ordinary” and had done nothing special with her life.



She allowed herself to sink into the water after she was accidentally knocked in following a ferryboat crash. Meredith nearly drowned, just as her own mother died, hours later in Seattle Grace while Meredith was unconscious.



After she treated her stepmother in the hospital for a case of hiccups gone horribly awry and the stepmother died, her father hit Meredith in the face, later banned her from the funeral, holding her personally responsible for what happened. He later fell off the wagon and showed up at the hospital completely drunk.



Her boyfriend, who eventually left his wife Addison for Meredith, started dating other people after Meredith told him she wasn’t quite ready to commit to marriage yet but wanted to be with him. (It should be noted that Derek's demands that she commit or else he was off to date others occurred not long after the bomb squad guy had blown up, after her mother died, after Meredith nearly drowned and after her father blamed her for his wife's death and then started drinking again.)



On the day she was going to tell her “Post-It Note” husband Derek that she was pregnant, he was shot in the chest by a gunman. When her colleagues were operating on Derek and the gunman demanded that they cease operating or be shot, Meredith offered herself up to the shooter be sacrificed instead of Derek and the other doctors. One of the surgeons messed around with some wires and made it look as though Derek had died on the table so the shooter would be satisfied and leave the room. Meanwhile, Meredith crumpled to the ground in enormous grief. Meredith regained her composure once she learned Derek wasn't dead and began operating on a fellow doctor who’d been shot. Then she had a miscarriage.

Her best friend Cristina wouldn’t speak to her for some time later as she was experiencing emotional difficulties after the shooting and blamed Meredith for it.

Meredith couldn’t get pregnant again, even after fertility treatments. When she and her husband Derek got the chance to adopt a baby, an error in her professional judgment led to not only her firing, but to her husband shunning her and to them both losing custody of that baby.

If all of this had happened to me in the span of a handful of years, I'd be balled up and sitting in a dark corner someplace.

I no longer wish to see Meredith Grey, an intelligent, talented, big hearted surgeon as a victim. What’s next, have Meredith Grey get early onset Alzheimer’s like her mother? Get cancer? Become an alcoholic like her father and her father-figure (Richard Webber)? Get hit by a bus? She could go the Dr. House route and either start abusing prescription drugs and then get locked up in a mental facility or ram a car through the front of Derek’s house-in-the-making then wind up in prison. Actually, I’d prefer to see Meredith crash her car into Derek’s unfinished house because then at least she wouldn’t be the one who was victimized. At least she’d be doing something other than getting crushed and let down by the people she loves.

Now That's More Like It; A 'Grey's' Trailer with Some Substance

Meredith Grey’s really fired? Seriously? By Richard, of all people? Well that’ll put things in a new perspective, won’t it? Does this mean Meredith will find work at another hospital? Become an at-home mom?

I’m hopeful that Derek will not continue to punish her and keep her at arm’s length, even though she did jeopardize his clinical trial which he hoped would help him find a cure to the disease he fears she may have inherited. Meredith was leading with her heart, trying to help Adele, something she’d hope Derek would do for her. From her perspective, she couldn’t save her own mother, but she could try to do something for someone else about whom she cared. But Derek can be such a sanctimonious jerk that I wouldn’t be surprised if he walks away, even though they did just get married and adopt a child together.

As for the blow-back for Alex, I hope it’s harsh and nasty. Despite all the good his character has done over the years and how much he’s been emotionally battered by life, that doesn’t justify turning on Meredith and sabotaging her. She wasn’t doing something to promote herself or help herself in a selfish way. No one would have died because of what she did. It was unnecessary.

What do you hope happens in the season eight Grey’s Anatomy premiere?

Notes on Pop Culture: 'The Killing's' a Conundrum, 'Grey's' Adoption & 'FNL's' Julie Messes Around

Image credit: AMC.

The Killing’s a Conundrum

I’m still watching each new installment of AMC’s pitch dark drama The Killing with a question mark floating above my head as if it were in a cartoon bubble in a comic strip. Every time I think I have an idea of who was involved in the teenage girl’s murder – which is the central question of the show – that notion is quickly dispatched. It’s gotten to the point that I’ve resolved myself to the fact that I won’t be able to identify the killer until it’s blatantly obvious, like when the person’s in handcuffs and says, “I did it.”

But that’s okay with me. I'm liking the mystery. Unlike with some of the unbelievable hokey twists and turns a show like 24 took, when there were intentional dead ends intended to put viewers on the wrong trail, The Killing is going about unfolding this tale in a pretty smart fashion. And the mother of the teenage murder victim, played by Michelle Forbes . . . if she doesn’t win an armload of statues for best supporting actress it’ll be a shame. She’s been terrific.

I reviewed the most recent episode of the show over on CliqueClack TV.

Image credit: ABC.

Grey’s Adoption?

So will it be as easy as the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy led us to believe, that Meredith and Derek will be able to adopt that adorable little girl just like that? After so much heartache, the miscarriage and the failed infertility treatments the baby will just be theirs? (I devoted a recent column to how many primetime shows, including Grey's, have been featuring infertility and adoption storylines.)

There are two more episodes left in this season of Grey’s and while the last episode (reviewed here) made things appear to be looking up for the show’s central couple -- they got legally married and hope to adopt baby Zola -- I’m assuming that before the season ends the boom will be lowered once more, most likely in the form of the Alzheimer’s clinical trial being invalidated because of Meredith’s actions and Alex’s big mouth. But I really hope I’m wrong about that. It’s been too good of a season to just allow the uncharacteristic, preachy behavior of Alex to undo the study in the waning moments of the season.

Do you think Zola's adoption will go through smoothly? Will Meredith get caught for helping Adele?



Friday Night Lights’ Julie Messes Around

Pity Friday Night Lights’  Tami and Eric Taylor. They’ve poured so much into their first child Julie, tried to do the best they could to put her on the right track. And now Julie’s off at college messing around with a married teaching assistant in her very first semester. Not a very auspicious start to her college career.

Then there’s Buddy Garrity’s kid, Buddy Jr. who broke into his father’s bar, got drunk and passed out, stole his father’s credit card and took off in his father’s truck . . . after his mother had sent the teen to live with his father because he’d become uncontrollable and been taking drugs as well as drinking.

Given those two parental situations, I’d rather be the Taylors.

Image credits: Carole Segal/AMC, Richard Cartwright/ABC.

Notes on Pop Culture/Politics: 'Grey's' Mixed Notes, Ferraro's Passing Ignored, Paging Mr. Darcy

Grey's Mixed Notes

So, about that Grey's Anatomy major music extravaganza . . . it received largely mixed reviews, like the mixed review I gave it the morning after it aired.

The scene above -- in which Callie was supposedly imagining all the Grey's couples gettin' flirty and sexy -- is an example of how this episode, which started out very powerfully (so much so that I was teary-eyed), went horribly awry. While Callie and her unborn baby were in life threatening situations and Meredith was severely depressed about her inability to have her own baby, she would NOT be singing gloriously about "running on sunshine" with a crazy-big smile on her face while kissing Derek I'm sorry. This scene was preposterous.

However my review wasn't all negative:

"Sara Ramirez, who plays Callie, sang the hell out of this episode. She has a lovely voice. She energetically emoted. She underplayed it when the song called for quiet grace. And that opening scene where Callie was having an out-of-body experience and singing as she was brought to Seattle Grace and wheeled into the OR for the first time, that was mighty powerful.

Chyler Leigh (Lexie) and Chandra Wilson (Bailey) also sang exceptionally well throughout."

Otherwise . . . too. Much. Singing.

Media Coverage: Ferraro vs Taylor

Following on the heels of last week’s post about the disparity of the media coverage allotted to the deaths of screen icon Elizabeth Taylor and political trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro, I wrote a column which contains some hard numbers to back up my assertion that Taylor received loads more news coverage than did the first woman vice presidential nominee for a major political party, someone who the likes of Hillary Clinton and Madeline Albright said was a role model for them.


The most dispiriting part of the piece was this quote that I found from a National Journal writer who, after comparing the  media attention these two women received after their deaths, surmised, “. . . [A]s the media space afforded Elizabeth Taylor’s and Ferraro’s obituaries attested . . . society still values female sex symbols more than female leaders.”

Paging Mr. Darcy

I have an embarrassing confession to make: I've never read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I know, shocking, isn't it?

But seeing as though I've been on a classics binge lately -- A Tale of Two Cities and Jane Eyre -- I started Pride and Prejudice over the weekend and am bringing with me high hopes that this classic will deeply impress me. I hope I won't be disappointed.

In the meantime, as far as my pet project of reading the entire, seven-book Harry Potter series aloud to my youngest son, I've started writing about the Harry Potter Reading Out Loud Project on my lifestyle/parenting blog. Thus far, between myself and my husband, we've read 2,750 pages to our now-9-year-old son and just concluded Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

To keep tabs on our reading progress, I made a special blog page where I list on what page we left off and what was going on when we closed the book. We've just started the beginning of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and are still on the part where the U.K. Prime Minister is having a disturbing conversation with the Minister of Magic.

Image credit: Amazon.com.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Grey's' Pulls An 'Alias' & Ferrell Goes to 'The Office'

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy*

Grey’s Pulls An Alias

If you saw the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy, you were no doubt surprised by its final scene, which set up next week’s special “musical” edition of Grey’s slated to feature cast members singing songs which have previously been featured on the ABC drama including The Fray’s “How to Save a Life,” a tune made popular by the show.

I was none too pleased to see what happened in that final scene shortly after Arizona, who spent the episode being bitterly jealous of baby daddy Mark, proposed marriage to Callie on their way to a weekend away together: An Alias-like car crash. During the final moment of the fourth season of the spy drama, pregnant Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn had been discussing marriage while driving to a romantic, weekend getaway when they too got into a surprise car crash, although they were intentionally struck by someone as opposed to in Grey’s where Arizona accidentally smashed into a truck in front of them. (I reviewed the episode for CliqueClack TV.)

That being said, I’m very curious as to how this musically themed episode, slated for March 31, is going to play out. Will it be god awful or kind of cool?

ABC has released the first few minutes of that new episode. Warning: The video, courtesy of TV Fanatic, is graphic.

Notes on Pop Culture: Censoring Classics, 'Grey's' Lets Cristina Heal, 'The Middle's' on a Hot Streak

Censoring Classics

My father gave my 12-year-old son Tom Sawyer for Christmas and my 12-year-old daughter To Kill a Mockingbird. Both books were mentioned this week when news broke that a publisher had sanitized Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer by removing references to the N-word to make it more palatable to be taught in schools.

The New York Times’ Michiko Kakutani wrote a powerful column decrying the new edition’s changes saying that the "original texts should be sacrosanct intellectual property" and that "tampering with a writer's words underscores both editors' extraordinary hubris and a cavalier attitude embraced by more and more people . . . that all texts are fungible."

An excerpt:

“Haven’t we learned by now that removing books from the curriculum just deprives children of exposure to classic works of literature? Worse, it relieves teachers of the fundamental responsibility of putting such books in context – of helping students understand that Huckleberry Finn actually stands as a powerful indictment of slavery . . . of using its contested language as an opportunity to explore the painful complexities of race relations in this country. To censor or redact books on school reading lists is a form of denial: shutting the door on harsh historical realities – whitewashing them or pretending they do not exist.”

I told my kids when they started reading their books that the N-word will appear there and we had discussions about the word and about what was going on in the point in American history when their respective novels are set. Unsettled as my explanations may make them, I agree with Kakutani that it’s important to tell children about history so they can understand how very much life has changed since then. I’m looking forward to discussions with the kids about those books and, if my son likes Tom Sawyer, may pick up Huckleberry Finn for him next.



Grey’s Allows Cristina to Heal

I was quite pleased that Grey’s Anatomy gave Cristina Yang the room and the time to heal on her own terms, something which finally occurred in latest episode, “Disarm.” While many shows artificially rush a character through something like mourning, fear or anger because they think the fans can’t handle a slow, stop-start emotional recovery from a trauma, Grey’s allowed Cristina to flail around for 10 episodes – impulsively get married, hang out at the mall, do a cruddy job of bartending at Joe’s -- before finally having the character regain her footing. And it was worth the wait.

I reviewed the episode on CliqueClack TV, and express the hope that the ill-advised Teddy-Denny 2.0 marriage doesn’t cause the show to run off the tracks, plot-wise.
 


The Middle's on a Hot Streak


From the spot-on satire of parents who have turned over complete control of their lives to their children – running around to three different fast food restaurants to get each child his or her preferred food, allowing the offspring to take over the “big” TV and retreating to other rooms so the children can watch what they want – to the grade school-aged Brick discovering the internet for the first time (because his parents were refusing to cart him to the library every other day) and learning that there aren’t really single people out there waiting to meet him, the latest episode was thoroughly entertaining.

Following on the heels of its excellent dysfunctional Thanksgiving installment and its scathing Christmas episode, where Frankie battled with her parents over how many presents the children should have under the tree, The Middle is having a good run of it lately.

Image credit: New York Times.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Grey's' Goes Dark 'til 2011, 'Men of a Certain Age' S2 Premiere, Bieber/Brady Hair Spoof

Grey’s Goes Dark ‘Til 2011

Grey’s Anatomy is going on hiatus until January and had a strong close to 2010.

The latest episode – which I reviewed over on CliqueClack TV – was entertaining from beginning to end, from Callie spitting in McSteamy/Sleazey’s shower and trying to persuade Alex to become “the male me,” to Cristina’s inability to shut up during her fishing trip and Bailey’s flirtation with Eli (Daniel Sunjata from Rescue Me). The light moments were, as usual, accompanied by serious twists: Owen telling Meredith he doesn’t want her around the formerly bartending Cristina, Callie shutting the door in Arizona’s face and Teddy impulsively proposing marriage to Denny Duquette Redux (this could go well or could turn hellishly soap opera-ish).

While watching the last episode, it felt very reminiscent of the first and second seasons in its tone. And that’s a good thing. Given that the season seven premiere began in the aftermath of the Seattle Grace shooting that capped season six, how do you feel about the first half of the season? I think it’s been, for the most part, a solidly entertaining and thoughtful season that hasn't gone for the easy answers, at least not for the series regulars.



Men of a Certain Age Season 2 Premieres

Men of a Certain Age is one of those solid, quality shows that's on the quiet side but really ought to have a larger audience than it does.

Ray Romano is not Everybody Loves Raymond’s Ray Romano in this one-hour drama about three friends dealing with the disappointments, challenges and struggles that occur in middle age. Ray isn’t whiny or incompetent or pushed around by his mother or his wife. Instead, he’s Joe, the freshly separated dad of two, who owns a party supply shop (which is ironic because he’s so glum), whose gambling addiction led to the death of his marriage. In the freshman season, Joe was living in a hotel and by the finale he’d gone back to gambling in order to try to scrape together a deposit for a home he wanted so his children could come and stay with him.

Accompanying Romano’s raw and vulnerable Joe, are Scott Bakula’s Terry, a never-married actor who never got his big break and wears his disillusionment on his face, and the fabulous Andre Braugher’s Owen, a married father of three who spent most of the first season under his father’s thumb working at his dad’s auto dealership and stress eating.

It’s rare to see this kind of detailed portrayal of the day-to-day life of a group of guys who aren’t cops or doctors or lawyers or Hollywood agents or ad men from the 1960s. They’re regular guys, with regular problems that are expertly dramatized on the small screen in such a way that it makes Men of a Certain Age a pleasure to watch, if you like insightful dramas about the small moments that, when taken together, make up a life.

Its second season premieres on TNT tonight at 10.

Tom Brady vs. Justin Bieber from Kenny Mayne

Bieber/Brady Hair Spoof

Okay this thing with Tom Brady’s hair, it’s annoying. Sure, at the beginning of the football season, I was mildly curious as to what was up with the new shag do, but that’s about it. Months into the season, I could care less about Tom Brady’s stupid hair and chirpings coming from the little moppet Justin Bieber who sports a similar look.

Brady attempted to demonstrate that he’s a good sport about this contretemps by appearing in a Funny or Die video about it but, like with the entire Brady/Bieber Hair controversy, I’ve not deriving much amusement from it. You?

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Mad Men's' Roger Sterling, 'Grey's Anatomy' & 'The Event'

Image credit: AMC

John Slattery on Roger Sterling: ‘I don’t think he has any interest in killing himself'

Mad Men’s Roger Sterling has had a bad time of things this season. His marriage to his super-young former secretary, which upended his entire life, hasn’t quite turned out the way he hoped as his eye has wandered back to the woman with whom he shares an intense emotional connection, the married Joan Holloway Harris. When Roger and Joan were out on the town, they were mugged. Joan lost her wedding ring and the duo had sex in a dingy alley . . . which led to an unplanned pregnancy followed quickly by an illegal abortion, after Roger plainly told Joan that if she went through with the pregnancy he'd disavow paternity.

On top of all that, Roger’s one big client, American Tobacco -- which represented a huge hunk of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s revenues -- left Roger high and dry after decades of working together, putting the entire future of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in jeopardy. Then Roger lied about losing the account, pathetically faking a phone call and a trip.

Some have speculated online as to whether Roger, played by John Slattery, is suicidal. (He was darkly joking about suicide after Ida Blankenship died, saying he, a man who survived two heart attacks, didn't want to die at his desk.) Slattery chatted with New York Magazine about this issue, as well as Roger’s very bad season.

Grey’s Off to Good Start

Grey’s Anatomy’s writers have certainly not taken the easy road as the drama’s seventh season has begun and, as a result, the show's off to a fine start. There've been no neat and tidy resolutions following the mass shooting in the season six finale. Seattle Grace staffers who survived intimate contact and threats from the homocidal shooter has left them with emotional damage, some more so than others. The characters' reactions have been varied, though I must say that Lexie Grey is getting on my nerves.

I was particularly fond of the interplay between McDreamy and Cristina in last week's episode, particularly the scene in which Derek said they would’ve never chosen each other as friends but now they’re family and he was worried about her withdrawal from her work. And because she saved his life, operating as the barrel of a loaded gun was next to her head, he feels as though he owes her. I reviewed the latest episode here.

Any Grey’s fans think the season has been going well so far?

The Event: Is It Worth Sticking with It?

Still feeling burned by Lost’s series finale and unhappy with the way FlashForward ended while leaving a million loose ends dangling (thanks ABC), I’m leery about latching onto another show that's a dense serial drama where answers won’t immediately arrive, that is, if they ever do.

Which brings me to The Event. It’s got all these layers and conspiracies. Scenes flash around from time period to time period. People are dead and then they’re not. A jet liner disappears just before crashing into the president. Amidst all that, you know what was flashing in front in my eyes? Red flags. Giant ones.

Is this all going to make sense? Is it irrational, in light of Lost's final "hey they're all dead" season, to expect that answers will be forthcoming? That the network will encourage viewers to get all involved and then pull the rug out from under them, a la FlashForward? I’m very skeptical. You?

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

Amid the New Shows, Four Favorites Airing Season 1 Repeats

Image credit: ABC Family

While there’s ample fresh material on primetime TV with new and returning shows all over the TV schedule (The Good Wife premieres its second season tonight), a number of the freshman seasons of some well liked/loved shows are currently airing in repeats on cable:

Gilmore Girls: My daughter and I, both fans of the Gilmore Girls (feel free to play “Six Degrees of Lorelai Gilmore”), have enjoyed the season one repeats on the ABC Family channel of the sassy mother-daughter duo and the loony antics of their Stars Hollow neighbors. At this point in the first season, Lorelai’s already broken up with Max once, Rory’s still pretty new to Chilton and they haven’t met Rachel yet.

Friday Night Lights: ABC Family is also in the midst of running season one of Friday Night Lights, starting back when Eric Taylor was the new Dillon head football coach and Tami was Dillon High's guidance counselor. Issues ranging from former Dillon QB Jason Street dealing with his sudden paralysis to racial tensions at Dillon High all made FNL’s freshman season powerful.

Grey's Anatomy: Want to go back to square one with Grey’s Anatomy? Lifetime is, this week, airing the first few episodes of the medical drama, before the mass shooting, before Gizzie, before Denny and before the ferry boat accident, or, as some former fans might say, back when the show was edgy and new and McShiny.

The New Adventures of Old Christine: Lifetime has also started airing Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ funny and sarcastic The New Adventures of Old Christine, featuring Louis-Dreyfus' Christine, a deeply flawed divorced mom who lives with her brother and is prone to make an idiot of herself. It’s good to see this show get a new home, particularly after CBS execs treated it so badly.

Image credit: ABC Family.

Six Degrees of Lorelai Gilmore

Seeing that I’ve been writing about Parenthood for CliqueClack TV, coupled with the fact that my daughter has been watching repeats of the Gilmore Girls on ABC Family, I frequently think about Lorelai Gilmore, the well loved character played by Lauren Graham.

However last night I didn’t happen to be thinking about Lorelai/Lauren Graham at all when she suddenly came to mind because characters who’d appeared on Gilmore Girls with her kept appearing. There on The Event was Lorelai’s former fiancé Luke Danes (Scott Patterson), only he wasn't wearing his backwards baseball cap. (The Event also features the English teacher Lauren Graham’s new Parenthood character briefly dated.) While flipping through the stations, I spotted Lorelai’s other former fiancé, Max Medina (Scott Cohen) on Hawaii Five-O.

Could Lorelai Gilmore/Lauren Graham be a female Kevin Bacon?

As names of shows started popping into my head, I tested my fledgling theory:

Mad Men – There was Peyton Sanders, otherwise known as Don Draper on Mad Men (played by the awesome Jon Hamm), who Lorelai found to be such a dreadfully boring man that she refused to go on a second date with him, even though their second date was supposed to be attending a David Bowie concert.

Grey’s Anatomy – Lorelai’s father, Richard Gilmore (Edward Herrmann) did a three-episode stint where he played significantly older-than-usual surgical intern, Norman Shales.

The Good Wife – Lorelai’s daughter Rory dated Logan Huntzberger (Matt Czuchry) when they attended Yale. Now Logan’s making life difficult for one of Lorelai's peers, Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) in Chicago on The Good Wife.

Lost (it came to mind because I was thinking of The Event): This route is more circuitous, but still gets you to Lorelai in six links or less: Matthew Fox was on Party of Five with Scott Wolf, who was on The Nine with Kim Raver, who’s now on Grey’s Anatomy which had Edward Herrmann.

24 – Chloe O’Brian, Jack Bauer’s most trusted ally, appeared twice in the Gilmore Girls, once in Kirk’s odd black and white film (the whole thing is on the DVD set) and once as a troubadour who flouted Taylor Doose’s crackdown on troubadours who were crowding the Stars Hollow streets.

Modern Family -- Julie Bowen, who plays Claire Dunphy, played Matthew Fox’s wife on Lost. See the aforementioned Lost connection.

You can also link Desperate Housewives and Boston Legal to Lorelai through Duck Phillips/Paul Young, Mark Moses’ roles on Mad Men and Desperate Housewives respectively. Chilton's Headmaster Charleston (Dakin Matthews) also appeared on Desperate Housewives as Bree's pastor, providing a more direct link between Wisteria Lane and Stars Hollow.

It’s a fun game to play once you start . . .

Image credit: WB.

Thoughts on TV's Fall Premiere Week

Image credit: Fox

*Warning -- Spoilers ahead from a whole bunch of season premieres.*

Lots of TV shows premiered this week, several more (The Good Wife, Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters) will be premiering in the next few days. Here’s a wrap-up of the good, the disappointing and the jury’s-still-out premieres:

House – The episode marked the official beginning of “Huddy.” As I watched House and Huddy spend a lot of time in bed and get emotionally intimate with one another, I was plagued by this question: How in the hell is a House-Cuddy romantic relationship going to work given that he’s a nut case and she’s, well, she’s Cuddy AND his boss AND has a small child at home?

That’s what the rest of the season will tell us apparently. I'm hoping this won't turn out disastrously, like so many of the pairings of leads who’ve been kept apart then become an official couple turn out to be. (FYI – LOVE Wilson.)

Image credit: NBC

The Event – I’m still licking my wounds from that Lost series finale which left me feeling duped and stupid for having invested so much time and energy trying to parse scenes, statements and motivations when none of it even mattered. And I still harbor disappointment about how last season’s FlashForward failed to capitalize on a fascinating premise. So when I watched the pilot episode of the complicated, flashback/flashforward/present time show I was leery of getting burned again. I’m not giving this show much time to hook me, I’ll tell ya that much.

Raising Hope – This quirky, politically incorrect half-hour comedy about a guy suddenly getting custody of a child he conceived on a one-night-stand -- with a woman he didn’t know was a serial killer -- surprised me. The hapless dad, who still lives with his parents (who had him when they were teens) and his loopy grandma, has a Malcolm in the Middle-like appeal. I’m intrigued.

Parenthood – I thought the first two episodes of the sophomore season of this show were well done – read my CliqueClack TV review of the latest episode here -- but I was surprised that the writers made Peter Krause’s character Adam Braverman look like an obnoxious control freak in the second installment. Still can’t stop seeing Lorelai Gilmore in Lauren Graham’s Sarah Braverman.

The Middle – This season two premiere resonated a bit too well and loudly in my household where three kids recently went back to school. It was set on the first day of school and featured Patricia Heaton’s Frankie Heck vowing that -- after day one of school went badly -- the family was going to start the new year off fresh and “get in front” of all the possible problems. Frankie's noble campaign, of course, backfired.

Image credit: ABC

 Modern Family – After so much pre-game hype, this premiere fell short of my insanely high expectations of it being laugh-out-loud funny from beginning to end, although Cameron ducking Mitchell’s crazy nailgun wielding was hilarious. As was "Buckety."

30 Rock – Okay, I know I’ll be inviting haters for saying this, but, even with Matt Damon on board, I was kind of bored with this premiere.

Grey’s Anatomy – Pitch. Perfect. This was a perfect follow-up to the tense, shocking season finale where 18 people at Seattle Grace were shot, 11 killed. The characters all responded differently to their emotional trauma, but I think Meredith Grey will, as usual, take longer to heal than the rest. Read my CliqueClack TV review of the premiere here.

Private Practice – After a rather unusual mashup of love scenes between Pete and Violet, and Cooper and Charlotte (the scenes reminded me of something out of a movie) this premiere disappointed me because, following the emotional punch of its season finale in May where a main character unexpectedly died, a volatile couple reunited while a kept-apart one got back together, I wanted more depth, more . . . something.

Your thoughts on the big fall TV premiere week?

Image credits: Fox, NBC and ABC.

Notes on Pop Culture: Poehler on 'SNL,' 'Grey's' Sneak Peek & 'Modern Family'

One of my favorite comedians, Amy Poehler -- of NBC's underrated Parks & Recreation -- is hosting the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. I cannot wait. She’s been especially good when she’s appeared on SNL since departing as a cast regular, though I don’t think it’s possible for her to top the "Palin Rap" she performed when she was pregnant out . . . to . . . there . . . in 2008. NBC has released some promos:



Meanwhile, ABC has released a sneak peek of Grey’s Anatomy’s season seven post-hospital shooting premiere. I watched that shooting episode repeat last week, eerily on the same day when a real life shooting took place at Johns Hopkins. I hope that Shonda Rhimes & Company can deftly capitalize on the raw human emotions that an event like that would spawn but in a non-exploitative way, allowing the after-shocks to linger, instead of just pushing them aside for crazy-case-of-the-week drama.

Judging by a video excerpt ABC released, Derek's response to nearly dying after being shot by a disgruntled patient's husband is to speed like a maniac on the highway and get busted for it.

Don’t forget, tonight Modern Family and The Middle both return tonight. I’m hoping they’ll build upon strong freshmen seasons and that the Modern Family crew -- like the Mad Men folks -- will take its award accolades with grace, not let it destroy the sharp humor of the simple in the show and not muck it up with too many guest stars. *fingers crossed*

Notes on Pop Culture: Bye-Bye 'My Boys,' 'The Big C' Gets Crazy, Fall TV Previews

Bye-Bye My Boys

Just as news about the reported sexual harassment of a female sports journalist is making headlines nationwide (I’ll write more about that in another post), TBS goes and cancels the comedy My Boys, whose lead character PJ Franklin, (Jordana Spiro) is a sporty woman who's also a sports reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times. That just stinks. I was fond of PJ.

The Big C Gets Crazy

While the latest episode of The Big C showcased Laura Linney’s cancer patient acting all wild, crazy and impulsive by emptying her 401K, buying a red convertible (without researching it in Consumer Reports first!), splurging on pricey champagne, bribing a restaurant waitress to keep her wine glass full during lunch and pretending to be her dermatologist’s girlfriend when she forced herself to accompany him on his house hunting trip, I wondered in my episode review on CliqueClack TV whether the show can keep this particular thread going: Watching Cathy go through various iterations of acting on every whim as a response to her dire cancer diagnosis.



Fall TV Previews

I surveyed the new and returning fall shows in my pop culture column this week. The show I’m most anxious to see: Modern Family. Can't. Wait.



After last season’s gripping finale, I’m looking forward to Grey’s Anatomy’s return as well. (There are abundant spoilers floating around about a wedding between a particularly challenged Grey's couple in the season seven premiere.)

One show about which I’m on the fence: Desperate Housewives.

I’m also intrigued by The Event but fear it may be a let-down a la FlashForward.

What fall shows are you looking forward to seeing?

Image credit: TBS via Entertainment Weekly.

Notes on Pop Culture: Dysfunctional Showtime Moms, Cancer on TV, Binging on 'Covert Affairs'

Dysfunctional Showtime Moms

When the Wall Street Journal ran a story this past spring saying that Showtime was cultivating a slate of shows featuring dysfunctional, strong women, building on the success of Weeds, I think they were underplaying it.

After watching the first few episodes of the new season of Weeds and the new Laura Linney cancer dramedy The Big C, on top of what they've with Edie Falco’s Nurse Jackie and Toni Collette’s United States of Tara the word "dysfunctional" doesn’t quite cover it. I wrote about Showtime's off-beat moms in my latest pop culture column this week.

Cancer on TV

Speaking of The Big C, watching Linney’s Cathy Jamison -- who’s upending her life in the wake of her stage 4 cancer diagnosis -- got me thinking about TV characters and cancer and how other characters dealt with the news.

As I thought about TV and cancer, for some reason, my mind kept going to Charlie Salinger from the 1990s show Party of Five. While Charlie didn't immediately shake things up in his life when he learned he had cancer, he did make some changes after he went into remission. (The video below features the scene where Charlie learned he'd gone into remission and shared the news with his family.)

My CliqueClack TV post looked at Charlie, Kitty Walker from Brothers & Sisters, Lynette Scavo from Desperate Housewives, Walter White from Breaking Bad and Izzie Stevens from Grey’s Anatomy.



Binging on Covert Affairs

I’d only seen a small number of episodes of USA’s new CIA drama Covert Affairs up until this week, when I decided to binge on them. It’s not Alias. Annie Walker is certainly no Sydney Bristow. But Covert Affairs is kind of light, kind of unexpectedly twisty and fun to watch, plus I get to see actors whom I've admired from other shows, like Anna Dudek (who’s fierce on Big Love, was conniving on House and is distinctly 60s suburban mom on Mad Men), Sendhil Ramamurthy (who was the mysterious researcher on Heroes), Peter Gallagher (of late from Rescue Me where he was an unconventional priest), Kari Matchett (who’d been turned into an alien but didn’t know it on Invasion and a political advisor on 24), plus I got to see D.W. Moffett. (Joe McCoy on Friday Night Lights)

Covert Affairs has been renewed for a second season.

Fall TV Previews: 'Grey's Anatomy' Releases Season 7 Promo Posters

Grey’s Anatomy had one of the best season finales of the spring back in May with its taut, grisly shooter-in-Seattle Grace storyline. (Refresh your memory with my season six finale review for CliqueClack TV here. Just watching the video below gave me that edge-of-your-seat feeling all over again.)



Derek sustained a serious gunshot wound. Alex was shot and bleeding out. Owen was shot in the shoulder. Meredith miscarried her baby. Two Mercy Westers were murdered, one shot to the head, another shot then bled out in Dr. Bailey’s arms. The hospital staff was completely traumatized as more than one person (Owen, the Chief, Meredith) put him- or herself in harm’s way in order to save others.

When Grey’s Anatomy returns on Sept. 23, it’ll be in the wake of all this violent carnage. In the meantime, ABC has released several promotional posters for the medical drama’s seventh season all of which are a bit edgy, a long way from the emphasis on the sexcapades in on-call rooms, and all feature some take on the theme of “healing.”

About that 'Grey's' Finale . . .

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the Grey’s Anatomy season finale.*

Have you come down from that intense, highly caffeinated Grey’s Anatomy season six finale yet? Seriously.

The blood bath, the deaths, the tension. For two freakin’ hours. That’s not what I need to watch right before I going to bed.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Good Wife' Stays Solid, 'Grey's Anatomy's' Parent Issues & 'Parenthood' Turning a Corner?

Good Wife Remains Solid

Okay Good Wife writers. You’ve got me.

My frequent complaint about your freshman drama has been that I’d prefer to see more scenes depicting the life of a political spouse/family in the wake of a humiliating sex scandal committed by the public official (a la the Spitzers, Sanfords, Clintons, Edwardes, et al) rather than load it up with legal procedural stuff. If I want to watch a garden variety lawyer show, I could go elsewhere. It’s not that I mind the legal cases, it's just that I didn’t want them to overwhelm the unique twist that makes The Good Wife different from other dramas.
That was the fear I had when The Good Wife seemed to be focusing more on getting to the truth about a criminal case or on how to deftly maneuver in the courtroom in order to secure a particular judgment.

But, overall, I have to say, the writers have done a good job of balancing the law and the personal life. Even though the latest episode “Doubt” – in which the disgraced, house-arrested Peter Florrick (Chris Noth) did not even appear – focused largely on a murder case, it did so in a way that was smart and intriguing by looking at the case from the perspective of the jury. Gold stars for not ending the episode in a rosy, optimistic note for Julianna Margulies’ Alicia Florrick’s team.

Grey’s Ponders Mixing Maternity & Medicine

Mixing maternity and medicine has been a semi-regular theme on Grey’s Anatomy since day one. We’ve known from the first handful of episodes that Meredith Grey sustained emotional damage from a childhood in which her parents divorced, her father essentially abandoned her and her mother, a successful surgeon, virtually blew her off and always chose medicine over Meredith.

In a 2007 episode, Meredith was assisting in an operation on a child both of whose parents were career-oriented and hardly ever at home. As a result, the girl bonded with her nanny more so than with her own parents. Meredith remarked that people with big-time careers should just get a cat instead of a kid because the kid needs time and attention from a mom or a dad. However the lead surgeon in the room, Miranda Bailey, a new mom, took umbrage.

Years later, Bailey, who’s now a divorced mom, has had her ups and downs with the child/career thing but seems to be in a good place right now just as other characters with high-pressure careers -- Callie Torres, McSteamy, McDreamy and Meredith -- are contemplating parenthood. I explored how Grey’s has been handling the issue of doctors having kids in my weekly Pop Culture column on Mommy Tracked.