Notes on Pop Culture: '24' Movie, 'Mildred Pierce,' 'Deathly Hallows 1' DVD & Lindelof on 'House'/'House' Done?

Fox/Entertainment Weekly

24 Movie for 2012?

Chloe O’Brian may be patching Jack Bauer through yet again, according to news reports. Entertainment Weekly says that there’ll be a Jack Attack on the silver screen in 2012.

Sutherland – who recently started tweeting under @RealKiefer -- has said publicly that he’s game to jump back into scowling Jack "Dammit!" mode.

Mary Lynn Rajskub who plays Chloe, tweeted on April 10, under the handle @rajskub, “I have not heard anything about the 24 movie.”

Then that was followed up with this tweet:

":) xoxoxo RT @CarlosBernard_P: @RealBrianGrazer That's very good news. Hope you call Carlos Bernard and @rajskub also for the 24 movie."

Recap Parts 1-3

Mildred Pierce = Doormat

I’ve watched the first three of the five parts of the Kate Winslet mini-series Mildred Pierce on HBO (the other two parts are sitting on my DVR), but that trio of episodes gave me plenty of material for my latest pop culture column about how the mini-series was turning out differently than I anticipated, particularly when the lead character put up with wretched treatment from her spoiled brat of an odiously haughty daughter and even rewarded the kid for acting like a selfish twit:

“I went into this Depression era dramatic series with the expectation that I’d be watching and rooting for a plucky mother of two who’d been left by her cheating husband, scratch her way to make a living to support her family in a time when there weren’t many jobs for anyone, never mind for soon-to-be-divorced thirtysomething women with children.

. . . [I]t’s almost as if Mildred Pierce is a kind of stealth, perhaps unintended allegory that’s relevant to today’s generation of helicopter parents, those who are hovering and doting on their offspring, getting their children whatever the little darlings want . . . even when the children’s behavior doesn’t warrant a reward.”

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1: DVD Out Friday

When part one of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out in theaters last year, I fully intended to see it in the movie theaters. Then a whole bunch of things conspired to get in my way and prevent me from doing so. Therefore, I’ve been unreasonably excited for the DVD release of the film on April 15.

My oldest son and I have plans to watch it this weekend together. (My daughter already saw it in the theaters with The Spouse last year, and my youngest son’s a bit too young for this film, plus we’ve only gotten to the beginning of book six in our Harry Potter Reading Out Loud Project, so I don’t want to spoil the surprises which lie in store for him.)



Fox/Lindelof

 Lindelof on House/Should House be Canceled?

While watching a pretty predictable episode of House this week -- I called that Thirteen had been incarcerated for doing something noble and not wantonly violent as soon as we learned she had a brother – I was mildly amused by the scene where Thirteen asked House to stop at a home and remain in the car while she proceeded to kick the guy who answered the door in the groin. As it turns out, that guy was Damon Lindelof, one of the guys who created and ran Lost.

Lindelof had been tweeting on Twitter -- @DamonLindelof -- that he had something in the works. Then he retweeted the photo you see to the right.

Speaking of House, New York Magazine had an intriguing piece suggesting that House has run its course and should be euthanized . . . kind of like Thirteen's brother. Writer Margaret Lyons gave five solid reasons including:

-- The fact that Greg House doesn’t change no matter what happens

-- The show doesn’t “hold onto a good story.” (I’d forgotten all about Kutner’s suicide, as have all the characters it seems.)

-- “House will never meet his match.”

-- Since the actor who plays Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) reportedly doesn’t want to continue beyond this season, and, Lyons said, “[T]here’s no show without Wilson.”

-- “The show is out of juice.”

What say you House fans?

Image credits: Fox/Entertainment Weekly, Amazon, Tweeted by @DamonLindelof

What Do You Think About TV 'Spoilers'?

Spoilers are a major pain in the butt when you write, tweet or Facebook about TV shows because it’s inevitable that someone, somewhere will have DVRed the program about which you’re sharing your sparklingly insightful observations. And some of those folks may loudly object to any revelation, even about an already-aired TV program, no matter how witty your remarks might be.

If you’re blogging about a TV show -- even if you plaster a big, fat old “spoiler warning” at the top of your entry as I'm wont to do -- there are people who'll still go nutty because they want everyone to keep the TV episode information under wraps and not put anything out there that that might inadvertantly wreck their surprise when they finally get around to watching the show. (This is why, after Sun and Jin drowned on Lost, I chose to put the photo of them AFTER the jump so people looking at the blog wouldn't holler that I'd spoiled the episode of "The Candidate" by posting their image under the headline, "Lost's 'The Candidate' Made Me Cry, Dammit".)

If you’re live-tweeting or Facebooking a TV show as you watch it, people who either a) DVRed the program or b) live in another location where the show hasn’t yet aired, are likely to blast you for being an East Coast elitist spoil sport.

For example, the day AFTER the massively hyped, buzz-worthy Lost series finale, I tweeted and blogged (this blog is syndicated on Facebook via Networked Blogs) about the finale and later read status updates from people threatening to de-friend/unfollow people who posted anything resembling a Lost spoiler because they hadn’t seen the finale yet.

So when I read Jay Black’s post on TV Squad (Full disclosure: I used to blog for them) entitled, “TV 101: The Spoiler Police Need to Calm Down,” I wanted to stand up and cheer. After offering up his own definition of spoilers – which he said include the endings of movies (for which you have to pay) and "inside" information about what’s going to happen in advance of it being aired on a TV show – Black, a pop culture/TV writer, issued a few of his personal rules about spoilers including these:

-- “One a show begins to air, I can discuss it in real time. If you live on the West Coast, stay off of Twitter and Facebook. Sorry, it’s the price you pay for great weather and loose marijuana laws.”

AND

-- “After the show is finished, anything and everything is on the table. If you don’t wish to hear about it, I suggest you unplug your Internet connection and move into the Unabomber Cabin.”

A few weeks ago, I hadn’t been able to watch a pair of DVRed episodes of 24. I knew that I’d be going on Twitter, Facebook and pop culture/TV web sites which would likely be discussing the shows before I’d be able to watch them and that I might come across information about the unseen episodes. And I did. I learned that Renee Walker had been killed before I saw it unfold on my DVR. But I wasn’t angry because the whole world doesn’t have to grind to a halt and NOT talk about already-aired 24 episodes just because I had too much on my plate for a couple of weeks. That’s the way it goes sometimes. You make choices.

Black feels the same way:

“The Internet shouldn’t be subject to your personal whims. The Internet exists for only three purposes: To spread information, the (ahem) intellectual discussion of that information and hardcore balloon stomping fetish porn. To ask everyone to tiptoe around the first and second of those pillars just because you DVRed Dexter and haven’t gotten around to watching yet is pure selfishness.”

What do you think about “spoilers” about TV shows? Do you have a problem with people live-tweeting/Facebooking shows or blogging about them once they’ve aired? Have you had episodes “spoiled” for you?

Notes on Pop Culture: Jack Bauer's Last Hour, More on 'Lost's' 'The End' and Parenting Teens in Primetime

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the series finales of 24 and Lost.*

Jack Bauer's Gone Nuts, Plus He Looked Like a Clone Trooper, Or Maybe Iron Man in That Stupid Mask

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of 24.*

After a strong start, this final season of 24 has been bumpy and has had some dreadful patches -- like the business with Dana Walsh and her ex-con boyfriend, as well as the probation officer storyline, whose body is rotting inside CTU walls -- but in the last few weeks, 24 had seemed as though it had picked up and redeemed itself. Loved the political intrigue, Chloe as the head of CTU and I’ve been a fan of the President Allison Taylor character.

Then came the last two episodes when 24 writers decided to have Jack Bauer completely unravel and go on a brutal killing spree and perform a vicious vivisection, only to be topped by that atrocious scene where he donned a ridiculous mask and stomped on the front windshield of the conniving former President Charles Logan's limo as Logan's eyes bulged in fear. Jack shoved a canister of tear gas into the hole in the windshield, forcing Logan to exit the vehicle so Jack could drag him away and terrorize Logan into revealing the names of those in Russian government who ordered the murder of Renee Walker.

While I understand that the writers may be trying to set up a situation where viewers would accept Jack’s death in the series finale – I am NOT privy to any inside information but I’m convinced Jack’ll die in the final moments – they’ve gone overboard. Jack has always lived in the gray area, committing evil acts if they were a means to an end of protecting people and the nation, of preventing terrorism and war, even if it meant torturing his own brother and facing off against his father in the process of ultimately doing good. But Jack’s never been as patently vicious as he has been in the past two episodes, acting as though his moral compass is as busted as that limo windshield. He’s not saving people right now, he’d exterminating them.

There were plenty of other ways to have Jack evade federal government officials, his CTU colleagues and the goons Logan hired, all in order to do the right thing and expose the presidential cover-up of the Russians’ involvement in President Hassan’s assassination without having the character morph into a grief-stricken, soulless killer bent on revenge, who occasionally dons Iron Man-like masks when he's breaking up a presidential motorcade. They didn't have to have the hero, Jack Bauer, become a terminator.

Anyone else turned off by Jack’s last two horrifically bad hours?

Image credit: Fox via BSC.

Talkin' 'Lost': Jack Shephard vs Jack Bauer, Top 10 'Lost' Love Scenes

Bauer vs Shephard

A writer at the Philadelpia Daily News has made an analogy which some 24 fans – and Jack Shephard haters – might find objectionable: She compares 24’s anti-hero Jack Bauer and Lost’s hero Jack Shephard.

Writer Ellen Gray concluded: “. . . [W]hile at first glance the angst-ridden surgeon and the stoic action figure seem to have little more in common than a nickname, a closer examination reveals two guys who, if anything, might be too much alike.”

While Bauer’s do-anything-it-takes-to-stop-the-bad-guys may seem at odds with Shephard’s let’s-do-what’s-morally-right point of view, Gray listedn some striking similarities between the characters including:

-- They’re “obsessed with saving people.”

-- They had “bad dads.”

-- They’ve both been behind bars. (She equates Bauer’s time in a Chinese prison, where he was tortured, to Shephard’s time being held hostage by Ben in order to convince him to remove his spinal tumor.)

-- They had unhappy marriages and haven’t done fared well in the dating department.

-- Their biggest similarity: Gray said they both “survived things – plane crashes, nuclear bombs – that most people wouldn’t.”

Hmm, she’s got some good points there,  but I'm not entirely convinced. I think Bauer's closer to Sawyer than to Shephard. What do you think?

Top 10 Lost Love Scenes

The web site Jezebel had an entertaining post highlighting what the folks at BuzzSugar consider the top 10 “Lost love” moments.

As you might expect, Sawyer turns up a few times – for his cage sex with Kate and his 70s flower-giving/kissing scene with Juliet. Sun and Jin had two entries on the list. . . *sniffle* But the top love scene went to . . . Penny and Desmond’s reunion. That wouldn’t have been my choice.



P.S. -- Just read New York Magazine's interview with Lost co-creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. It's worth the read, particularly for their explanation for how certain storylines -- like Jacob and the Man in Black -- weren't scripted from the beginning but came up during the creative process.

Cuse said of the 2.5-hour finale: "It will really feel like a feature film."
Image credits: Mario Perez/ABC and Fox.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Mad Men' Season 4 Premiere (End in '12?), Catching Up on '24,' 'Parenthood' Renewed & More

Random notes on pop culture this week (also known as school vacation week in my house, when the three offspring wreak havoc with the schedule) . . .

Mad Men: I've already programmed Sunday, July 25 at 10 p.m. into my BlackBerry as the premiere date for the fourth season of Mad Men, one of my all-time favorite dramas which, according to a New York Post report, may end after its sixth season in 2012. Quelle horreur. (Currently, I'm in the midst of watching the season three DVD set and remembering how very grand it was. Just finished watching "Souvenir" the other night.)

24: The Spouse and I were dreadfully behind on 24. We watched three hours of it last night and we're still one hour behind. As for the twists and turns during the past couple of hours -- which have definitely improved I must add: I still hate Dana/Jenny and wish she'd been the one who'd been shot instead of Renee; I wonder if Chloe will still snarl as much now that he-who-needs-to-stand-up-straight has left the building and I'd like to know why it seems as though the Russians are almost always evil puppeteers on this show.

Parenthood: I wrote a column, published on Mommy Tracked this week, examining how the freshman drama Parenthood has spent some time developing a working mom character – a workaholic mom is jealous of her at-home husband whose company is preferred by their young daughter -- but not as much time on the at-home mom character. Until a recent episode. The teenaged daughter of the at-home mom looked down her nose at her mother for having left the workforce in order to raise children and ridiculed what her mother did as frivolous. Parenthood should have a whole bunch of time to delve really deeply into modern motherhood as represented by these two archetypes given that it was just got the green light for a second season.

TV Actors Who Make You Forget Their Old Big Roles: Speaking of Parenthood . . . my latest CliqueClack TV post addresses how when I watch Lauren Graham on Parenthood, I’m still thinking about Lorelai Gilmore from the Gilmore Girls and it's been bugging me. Yet when I see Peter Krause in Parenthood, his Nate Fisher character from Six Feet Under doesn’t come to mind. The post asks: Which currently appearing TV actors have been successful in getting viewers to forget their previous, famous roles when they take on a new one on a new TV show?

Two current success stories I mentioned: Matthew Fox, who was once Charlie Salinger on Party of Five and is now Jack Shephard on Lost and Kim Delaney who was once Det. Diane Russell on NYPD Blue and is now Claudia Joy Holden, the general's wife, on Army Wives.

Army Wives: While we're talking Army Wives, I'm one episode behind but wrote a column about the season premiere over on Mommy Tracked and how the writers have taken an Army wife mom of two -- who once lectured fellow Army wives that they’d better just get used to coming in second behind their husband’s military career and quit complaining -- getting sick of coming in second and demanding that her husband leave the armed services.

I’ve been reading: I’ve been horrifically behind in my reading for my book club. (The last book I read all the way through BEFORE my book club met was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which was awesome by the way. I highly recommend it.) I just finished reading Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors, even though it was the book which the club discussed two weeks ago. (Once I got about 40 pages into it, I felt as though its momentum took off and made me keep reading it.) Now I’m reading my daughter’s Twilight: The Graphic Novel Volume 1 (greatly admire the illustrations) while I wait for my next book club book, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks to arrive. I’m determined to read it in time for the book club.

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

Notes on Politics & Pop Culture: Bye-Bye Bauer, Ethics on 'House'/'Grey's,' and Are Kids Getting Screwed on Health Care?

Bye-Bye Bauer

This current eighth day will be Jack Bauer’s last very bad day. Fox announced over the weekend that it is ending the 8-year-old series, though there’s talk of a 24 movie, which’d be approximately 22 hours shorter than one of Jack’s bad days.

The New York Times ran an interesting story examining the impact of the terrorism-centric series on TV, on the actions of actual U.S. interrogators in the field and on U.S. policy:

“24 first captured America’s attention in late 2001. The first season, which involved the explosion of a passenger plane and an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate, entered production well before the 9/11 attacks, but had its premiere eight weeks afterward. At the time, a review in the New York Times noted the ‘deadly convergence between real life and Hollywood fantasy.’ . . . The series enlivened the country’s political discourse in a way few others have, partly because it brought to life the ticking time-bomb threat that haunted the Cheney faction of the American government in the years after 9/11.”

While I’m on the subject of 24 . . . a few weeks ago I wrote that I’d become irritated by some wildly inane plot lines – particularly the Dana Walsh/Jenny one – on this final season of 24. In the past few weeks, however, things have markedly improved. I think it had to do with the fact that Dana/Jenny’s idiot ex-boyfriend is finally out of the picture, though I haven't warmed to Dana any and I'm still waiting for Brian Hastings to stop walking with a hunch. But I do I like the bomb-at-CTU line.

Ethics on House & Grey’s Anatomy

If you’ve ever watched House or Grey’s Anatomy, I have a question for you: Do you think that the medical professionals portrayed on those dramas behave ethically?

Dr. Greg House routinely dispatches his associates to patients’ homes to search the homes for clues to help him figure out medical mysteries. He employs duplicitous means to administer the treatments he thinks the patients should have, sometimes without their consent or against his boss’ orders. Grey’s Anatomy is rife with intramural bed hopping, bosses regularly sleeping with subordinates, and interns who do things do unsanctioned surgery on one another and cut the L-VAD wire of a heart patients to make him look sicker than he was in order to move him to the top of the transplant list.

So who out there actually expects these characters to be pillars of medical ethics?

Apparently some folks at Johns Hopkins were, at least enough to engage in a year-long study assessing the level of medical professionalism and bioethical issues addressed in one year of each show: “The results indicate that these programs are rife with powerful portrayals of bioethical issues and egregious deviations from the norms of professionalism and contain exemplary depictions of professionalism to a much lesser degree.”

One of the areas which had the most infractions? Sex. “The next most commonly observed departure from professionalism was sexual misconduct, with 58 incidents notched by the second season of Grey’s Anatomy and 11 in House," noted a Baltimore Sun’s TV blogger.

Kids Getting Screwed on Health Care?

I was among those who spent last weekend riveted to, of all things, C-SPAN, watching the “debate” on the health care reform bill (the NCAA tournament was in the picture-in-picture function). I had the TV on all afternoon, during dinner and through the evening, but fell asleep before President Obama’s speech just shy of midnight after the House passed the Senate’s version of the legislation. I watched the televised signing ceremony on Tuesday which, you might have heard, was considered a “big f*&%in’ deal” by the vice president.

An avid follower of the issue, I was frequently disgusted by the dialog and slimy tactics which accompanied the debate/negotiations, and was disheartened when people seem uninterested in engaging in authentic conversations about their genuine concerns without reflexively retreating back into their ideological corners, not even attempting to find a middle ground nor trying to reflect where the American people are on some health care reform issues.

After the health care reform bill became law, all kinds of things were promised. Some things were supposed to change immediately, like the fact that kids with pre-existing conditions were supposed to be able to get health insurance. The New York Times quoted the president saying earlier this month, “Starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.” That’s an issue on which I think people of most stripes can agree, making sure sick kids obtain the medical treatment they need.

But that aspect of the new health care reform law is being contested – as is the health care bill itself by several state attorneys general -- by insurance companies, according to the New York Times. “Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions,” the paper reported. “But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the ‘availability of coverage’ for all until 2014.”

Why am I not surprised that we likely have no idea what’s that law will actually mean to you and me or how it’ll actually going to be implemented? I’ll bet we’re going to find out that a lot of this won’t be what it seems.

Image credit: Fox.

Dear '24' Writers: The Clock is Ticking

Dear '24' Writers:

You've almost lost me. While I'm well accustomed to wearing a series of bemused smiles on my face as I watch Jack Bauer achieve superhuman feats (this week's deadly accurate knife throwing comes to mind), as others routinely travel faster than the speed of light to get around places (with no traffic tie-ups or bathroom breaks), I'm not used to openly guffawing at the show, repeatedly, to the point where I'm wondering if I'm actually watching a spoof of 24 instead of the real Jack Bauer power hour.

"I don't know if I'm gonna make it to the end of this season," my husband said about 20 minutes into the latest hour of Jack Bauer's eighth bad day. I concur. Why? Let me count the reasons:

The Dana/Jenny storyline is abysmal. Just atrocious. Worse than the Papa Bauer debacle.

Chloe O'Brian, once a source of quirky brilliance, has been reduced to the embodiment of a snarl who walks around the office and delivers messages to others. I so want the old Chloe back. (Maybe you can resurrect Edgar while you're at it. It'd be as believable as some of the schlock that's on this once gripping show this season.)

President Allison Taylor talked openly, in the middle of the UN floor, about the fact that there are unsecured nukes on the loose in New York City.

And the clueless head of New York's CTU bureau, Brian Hastings, is even more clueless than the usual supervisors featured on 24. I know that by-the-books bureaucrats are often portrayed as one-dimensional cardboard cutouts and are routinely skewered on the show, but, in watching Hastings, I've been scratching my head at the inanity of what he says and keep wondering when he's going to stand up straight. When Hastings questioned how undercover agent Renee Walker could've stabbed the arms dealer named Vladimir when, less than an hour ago she'd been "having sex" with him -- she'd been coerced, under threat of violence by a gun-toting guy with henchmen, to have relations with Vladimir, something known as rape, not "having sex" -- I went ballistic. (There's a thoughtful piece about this issue on the Women & Hollywood web site.) They've sunk to a new low with incompetent supervisors here.

You don't have much longer before I decide that 24's not worth my time any longer after having watched it faithfully for years, even when it veered into wildly uneven territory that massively strained credulity. It had better get better soon. The clock's ticking.

Sincerely,

Meredith

For those of you watching 24, feel free to weigh in on your thoughts on the eighth season.

Image credit: Fox.

A Few Questions About '24's' Eighth Day

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of 24*

I'm willing to suspend all manner of belief for the sake of enjoying a creative product (it's kind of necessary when you're a fan of Lost), but I had a bit of trouble doing so with the recent fifth hour of Jack Bauer's eighth bad day, where Jack, disappointingly, spent most of that hour sitting in a car while Renee "I'm just getting started" Walker did all of the legwork. Kind of unusual for our favorite, butt-kicking super-agent granddad, don't ya think?

Anyway, onto my questions about this season's 24 (in no particular order):

Am I sensing a trend here . . . that when a character on 24 wants to go someplace -- even though this season is set in New York City -- that it only takes 10 minutes to get anywhere? In Manhattan? It took President Omar Hassan (of the "Islamic Republic of Kamistan," otherwise known as Iran) "10 minutes" to go from CTU to the UN (seemed like less than that). It took Sark, wait, I mean the blonde son of the Russian mobster guy whose younger son has radiation poisoning, mere minutes to haul his brother to a doctor's office after fleeing the Russian mobster's lair. And it seemed like a breeze for Dana/Jenny Walsh to go from CTU to her apartment so she could be extorted/threatened by her former boyfriend. Can it really be that easy to get around Manhattan these days, particularly after there was an assassination attempt on a foreign leader and the U.S. president is in town? Maybe there are secret CTU-only tunnels under New York City that we're not aware of. That must be it.

As a faithful 24 viewer, I'm finding it hard to buy into the notion that Renee, who was a by-the-books FBI gal last season, had previously worked undercover with a ruthless Russian crime syndicate and now -- post-nervious breakdown -- seems to have no problems with severing a guy's thumb. Maybe she and Jack should have a "Who Can Torture a Suspect Better" contest. She'd probably win, even though Jack did sink a fire axe into a guy's chest a few hours ago.

Another eyebrow-raising moment: Given the fact that Chloe O'Brian was able to track down the name of some random, crooked Mexican politician who runs a particular hotel in less than a minute, it seems, what's the word, uh, insane to assert that CTU never figured out that they've employed a former convict as a data analyst . . . unless, of course, they do as good a job of vetting potential hires as the real TSA does in stopping a guy with a one-way ticket to Detroit who had no luggage, whose dad warned government officials that he'd become radicalized and hid a bomb in their underpants.

Ah, but what's 24 without its zany moments and Chloe's snarl to lighten the mood?
In the meantime, Fox is demonstrating that it has a sense of humor about its super-serious terrorism drama. Mirroring a move ABC made with super-serious Lost, they've started posting humorous recap videos. The 24 version uses a cartoon narrator who makes quirky observations as he tells us what's happened on the recent episode. Mildly amusing. I like the Lost: Untangled videos with the action figures better.



Image credit: Fox.

Pondering 'Big Love' Premiere, 'It's Complicated' and Midseason TV

What do I do when I'm not blogging here at Notes from the Asylum? Write and write and write, read, watch TV/films, consume caffeine and, on occasion, sleep. Here are some the recent pop culture musings I've recently composed:

Big Love Premiere: I was disappointed in the Big Love season four premiere because I felt as though it was consumed by dark, weird humor and not a sufficient number of meaningful moments. Likening it to Weekend at Bernie's gone awry, I wrote a guest column for the TV-centric web site CliqueClack TV complaining about how the Romansicle in the white hat which traversed the southwest in the back of various vans unfortunately dominated the night.

It's Complicated: After watching the delightful Meryl Streep in her light, enjoyable comedy It's Complicated (Alec Baldwin was fearless), I found myself asking in my Pop Culture column on Mommy Tracked whether it was just Baldwin's character or whether women who are in the midst of the heavy-lifting phase of childrearing are viewed as unsexy.

Midseason TV: Big Love isn't the only show that's kicking off a new season this winter. In another Mommy Tracked column I highlighted several TV programs which are premiering in the next several weeks. In addition to Big Love, I mentioned 24, Lost, Nurse Jackie, the United States of Tara, and the new NBC show starring Gilmore Girls Lauren Graham and Six Feet Under's Peter Krause, Parenthood.

What mid-season shows are you looking forward to watching? Any on-going shows (Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, House, etc.) for which you’re eagerly anticipating new episodes?

Image credit: HBO.

New Jack City: '24' Meets NYC

Fox has released a promo for the eighth season premiere of 24 (Jan. 17), which takes Jack Bauer -- that's Grandpa Jack to you -- to another east coast locale, New York City.

Best line in the promo: "Who's Jack Bauer?"

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!

Kim Raver on 'Grey's Anatomy,' Humanizing of The Chief, All Good Things

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Grey's Anatomy.*

I’m not big on trying to revive an occasionally creatively sagging TV show by haphazardly tossing a bunch of new characters -- particularly of the young and sexy variety -- into the mix just to see if the chemistry changes.

In the "absence" of its lead actress and beating heart of Grey’s Anatomy, Ellen Pompeo (she wasn't a vital part of storylines because Pompeo was pregnant and then on maternity leave) -- as well as the absence of major original cast member Katherine Heigl (who’s going to be taking another leave of absence from the show for a maternity leave) -- Grey’s spent several weeks this season trying the let’s-throw-a-hospital-merger-and-a-whole-mess-o-new-doctors-into-the-show to see if sparks of the dramatic and romantic kind ignited. And I hated it. Hated the Mercy Westers versus the Seattle Gracers. Hated the ER-ish tone. Didn’t – and still don’t – like the crop of new characters because they haven’t been fleshed out. They’re like fresh new moving parts of the scenery, akin to remodeling a kitchen when there’s something not quite right about the house surrounding it.

However last night, both Pompeo and Heigl were back, full-time (at least Pompeo was walking around instead of having to passively lie in a bed) on Grey's, though I thoroughly and vigorously don’t buy that Izzie would just abandon her new husband Alex because he supposedly “got her fired,” not after Izzie recovered from what should’ve been fatal cancer diagnosis, not after her emotional wedding ceremony to Alex as he married a woman whom he wasn’t sure was going to live out the year, not after Izzie died in his arms and was brought back to life by her now former colleagues. Alex even went to live in the woods in Derek’s trailer for her. And Izzie would leave Seattle and cut off all contact with her friends and husband because her job was the “one” thing she had left? What about the mere fact that she had a life to live? And a husband?

Izzie seemed ready to heave her career overboard after Denny died and she spent some quality time in that pink prom gown, but now her job at Seattle Grace is everything to her? She willingly risked her job for Denny with the whole L-VAD wire business, but her marriage to Alex doesn't mean as much? Sorry, I just don’t buy Izzie’s current behavior which seems out of character for someone who’s always valued relationships.

However there were two strong elements going for Grey’s last night: Kim Raver and, at long last, the humanizing of The Chief.

I was not a fan of Kim Raver when she played Audrey Raines in 24. I found her to be a whiny tool. But as a high-powered magazine editor on Lipstick Jungle, who had a philandering college professor of a husband and then she had her own affair with a much-younger, budding photographer, Raver was a perfect fit. I was saddened when the Lipstick Jungle was canceled, in part, because I wanted to see more of Raver’s Nico Reilly.

Last night Raver was introduced on Grey’s as Teddy Altman, a cardiothoracic surgeon extraordinaire who left a promising surgical practice after her best friend was killed in one of the Twin Towers on 9/11 and signed up to be an Army surgeon serving in Iraq, where she met Owen Hunt. Close friend and erstwhile love interest of  Owen's, Raver’s character seemed more fully human in a single episode – admitting to weaknesses, demonstrating strengths and an emotional range – than all of the Mercy Westers combined over the course of recent episodes. When Teddy celebrated the rain (because she’s been in the desert for so long) and then kept her cool while a child coded on the table and she waited for Cristina Yang to make the right choices in surgery, I crossed my fingers that she’ll be in this for the long-term.

Then there was Chief of Surgery Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.). For weeks and weeks, he’s been an automaton, acting rashly and emotionally closing himself off to everyone, alienating his former friends and his wife. Last night we learned that it 's because he’s started drinking again. The Chief has always been a complex character, particularly with his relationship to Meredith Grey and his lingering guilt over his extramarital affair with Meredith’s mother which was a contributing factor to Meredith’s lousy childhood. But too often, The Chief's stories get pushed aside for newer, younger, sexier characters. But I like characters, multi-dimensional ones with whom you can empathize or at least somewhat understand on a number of levels. I’ll take those kind of characters over McSexy drones any day.

Do you like Kim Raver's character? Any predictions about The Chief? Think Izzie's actions are out of character?


Image credit: Randy Holmes/ABC.

'24' Promo Featuring Jack 'Call Me Grandpa' Bauer Coming Out of 'Retirement'

The promo for the eighth season of 24 -- which starts January 17 -- features a nicely recovered Jack Bauer (out of the morphine-induced coma he was in at the end of season seven after the effects of the chemicals in a bioweapon became too much for him to bear) with his cute-as-a-button granddaughter. She calls him "Jack." He asks her to call him "Grandpa."

Later in the trailer, Jack grumbles something about having "retired" from government service, even though we see shots of him racing around shouting at people and, once again, protecting the U.S. president and the entire country from certain doom.

Retirement, "grandpa," what is this, the AARP version of 24?

Kiefer Says He Knows He's Not REALLY Jack Bauer

So we all know that Kiefer Sutherland was busted for literally headbutting a fashion designer earlier this month in New York -- supposedly while defending Brooke Shields, according to news reports -- and has a court date set for June. But leave it to Jimmy Fallon to ask Sutherland if he thinks he's actually super agent Jack Bauer.

Season Finales Aren't What They're Cracked Up to Be

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from a variety of recent season finales*

I've come to the conclusion that, for the most part, season finales are serious let-downs. They almost never live up to the hype. And how can they, really? We viewers want drama, humor, the occasional sweet moment and cliffhangers . . . but not emotionally brutal cliffhangers that can sometimes appear out of left field. The networks just want one thing: Monster ratings, and they don't care how they happen. This means there's tremendous pressure to amp up the drama and conflict, even if they don't make sense as far as where the show has been throughout the season because without ratings there will be no show. This annually leaves us viewers with TV season finales that largely leave us disappointed and, sometimes irritated particularly if a naked, ratings-chasing maneuver is employed.

Take Lost's shocking season three cliffhanger finale. Now that was one hell of a finale. A beloved character, Charlie Pace sacrificed his own life in order to save his friends and, after three seasons of character flash-backs, Lost engaged in several flash-forwards, depicting Jack Shepherd in a future point in time longing to return to the island while, in the current time period, Jack was singularly determined to get everyone off of it. It was the gold standard of finales. A major character died in it -- doing something he thought would save the woman he loved -- but his death was beautifully and touching done. It was tough to watch Charlie drown, but it made sense for the larger story at the same time that it made viewers sad.

Compare that to Grey's Anatomy recent, fifth season finale, where it was left uncertain as to whether two of the show's original characters will live or die when season six begins. One character, Izzie Stevens, had been battling cancer, so if she had died it would've been understandable and, given the previous three-hankie episode where she was married, poetic and tragic. But instead, the show had Izzie AND George O'Malley facing death, as O'Malley was hit by a bus and potentially fatally injured. Tacky. Grey's fourth season finale ended on a much better, more uplifting note, with Meredith Grey committing to Derek Shepherd by making a "house" of candles on the plot of land Derek had picked out for their future home, even as O'Malley learned he'd failed his intern exam.

Grey's season finale notwithstanding, the rest of this year's season enders were all over the map as far as quality goes.

Lost's season ender was good, but I thought it opened up too many different and confusing themes. Whereas the season three flash-forward finale blew my mind, this season's ending frustrated me because I was (and still am) having trouble reconciling the religious imagery and overtones with the sci-fi time travel angle, plus I feel deceived about the whole John Locke-is-really-dead twist.

The 24 finale -- which had many gripping moments this season, loved President Taylor, Renee Walker and even by-the-books Larry Moss, liked the debate over the use of torture, adored the new Washington locale -- was a classic case of too much build up. The show seemed to sputter to a lackluster conclusion, particularly when there's not much drama in the Jack Bauer's-gonna-die question because we already know that Bauer lives because Kiefer Sutherland has signed on to take his 24-hour odyssey to New York City next season, provided his parole officer lets him out of LA. Kim Bauer sitting next to her father's hospital bed, coupled with the ambiguity of the resolution with the sinister Alan Wilson -- who apparently was behind all manner of badness for several seasons, including the plot against President David Palmer -- didn't hold a candle to previously powerful season finales like the death of Teri Bauer in season one, the apparent poisoning of President David Palmer in season two and Bauer being shipped off to China in the fabulous season five.

The finale for House, however, was a nice departure from the pressure to be overly, out-of-one's-depth dramatic with the last show of the season. The tone of the final 2008-09 episode was well balanced all the way through to its "what the?" ending where we learned that Greg House didn't actually have relations with Lisa Cuddy and that his hallucinations had become so severe that he checked himself into a psychiatric facility.

Friday Night Lights capped a poignant season with an episode that jumped a few months into the future and unceremoniously had Eric Taylor dumped as the Dillon Panthers' coach and instead, assigned to run the football program for a new high school whose most talented players had already been poached by Dillon. There were way too many holes and unexplained questions as to how or why the town that had been behind Taylor -- who led his team to the State Championship that season -- would so easily fire him. I'm sure next season will be just as good as previous ones, but the finale felt abrupt.

The Office ended quietly with an insane Dunder Mifflin company picnic -- and the delightfully awful Michael Scott/Holly skit where they inadvertently informed an entire branch that it was being shuttered -- where the closest thing to a cliffhanger was Pam's visit to the ER. Viewers were led to jump to the conclusion that Pam is pregnant, but that's just an inference without overt confirmation.

Contrast the low-keyed Office finale with the over-the-top Private Practice finale, where there was an accidental embryo switch leaving two women pregnant with the other's baby, the ob/gyn for a patient with a high risk pregnancy was caught making eyes at the patient's husband in front of said patient, and a pregnant shrink (who refused to figure out which of her two lovers is the father of her baby) was rendered paralyzed by a shot administered by a patient who plans to cut the therapist's baby out of her belly. This wasn't a series of episodes. These events didn't unfold over a period of weeks. It was in one finale. And it was all too much.

I'm convinced that the ratings pressure is the biggest culprit for the zany finales and the reason why viewers inevitably feel disappointed by the aggressively-promoted season finales, many of which fail to justify the hype because either they're artificially crammed with manufactured drama or because the writers have things happen that they normally wouldn't.

What recent season finales did you like? Which ones let you down?

Image credit: Fox.

'24's' Making Me Feel Deja Vu-ish

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the previous episode of 24*

Public service announcement: There will be no head-butting/violating of probation jokes, inferences, etc. in this blog post. Personally I'm afraid Jack Bauer will come after me if I do. Now, onto 24 . . .

Next week, Fox will air the two-hour finale of 24. And I just have a tiny grievance to lodge in advance of the finale. While I've largely enjoyed this particular bad day in Jack Bauer's life -- it was heads and shoulders above the previous day -- it pains me to see that it appears to be veering toward a premise we've seen before, specifically, in the very first season. The recent episode concluded with Kim Bauer's life in jeopardy courtesy of some sinister bad guys who're going to make Jack do their dirty work on their behalf or else Kimmie's time being hunted by a cougar in the woods several years ago will seem like a walk in the park.

Is it too much to ask that the writers go with a different twist?

Finale Madness: House, Lost, Grey's, The Office, 30 Rock, Housewives, 24

It's a bit too much for one eight day period -- including one in which the home town hoop team is in the playoffs, and there's baseball on -- all these season finales at once. And you know that if you don't watch the finales on time (even in the DVR/TiVo era) you're likely to get something spoiled or you might stumble upon something accidentally on the internet.

If you don't want to miss some of the big finales and/or need to set the DVR, here are a few of note coming up over the next week:

House, Monday, Fox. Huddy. The combo of House and Cuddy. Doesn't exactly seem like the beginning of a beautiful relationship. One with power plays, resentment, lack of communication and co-dependency: Yes. Loving commitment: No. Huddy aside, I'm wondering if House has been suffering from Izzie Stevens syndrome, only the deceased person he's been hallucinating wasn't his one-time fiance, but his buddy's gal. Hmmm.

Lost, Wednesday, ABC. The big kahuna of all finales. Two-hour extravaganza. Jack. With an H-bomb. Threatening to blow up what in the future will become the Hatch. Kate not supporting Jack (again). Sawyer/LaFleur in another love triangle. Locke setting out to murder a mysterious character (who may or may not be among the living). I know that my expectations are way out of proportion with what the writers can possibly deliver, but, seeing that it's Lost, I simply don't care. Hope I'm not bitterly disappointed on Wednesday night.

Grey's Anatomy, Thursday, ABC. Yes, I was tearing up at the Izzie-Alex wedding switcheroo, particularly Alex's beautiful vows. ("Today I become a man. Today I become a husband . . . Today I become accountable to you, to our future.") After five seasons of this wildly uneven though always entertaining show, I'm planning on having a big tissue box next to me when I watch the finale. I'll also be crossing my fingers that there will be no more sick/dying/dead children. I've had plenty this season, thank you very much. If you believe the rumors, George O'Malley may or may not be leaving Seattle Grace. Izzie may or may not be dying/losing her memory post-surgery. We shall see. They've reserved two hours.

The Office, Thursday, NBC. Other than me continuing to miss the oddball nature of the Michael Scott Company. I have no earthly idea what'll happen. Maybe an explosion at Dwight's beet farm?

30 Rock, Thursday, NBC. Liz. Jack. Jenna. Tracy. Kenneth. It'll be a long, laughless, special guest star-less summer without them. The finale promises Donaghy daddy issues with guest star Alan Alda. Kidney anyone?

Desperate Housewives, Sunday, ABC. Let's hope Dave Williams goes bye-bye, Susan Mayer and Mike Delfino stop teasing us (and leading on clueless Katherine Mayfair) and that the Scavos get some decent material. Maybe Bree will decide to go into the burglary biz, as long as she stops renting storage units under her own name in which to house her ill-gotten-gains.

24, NEXT Monday, Fox. Jack Bauer's latest bad day comes to a close next Monday in a two-hour extravaganza. Maybe Jack will finish off the bad guys with a fierce headbutt . . . no wait, that's Kiefer Sutherland, the actor who plays Jack, and unsuspecting fashion designers. Maybe Sutherland just got confused and THOUGHT he was Jack and that the designer was really Tony Almeida in disguise.

Image credit: ABC.

Do YOU Think '24's' Becoming a 'Pathetic Parody of Itself?'

*Warning, spoilers from the recent episode of 24 ahead*

There's a rumbling among some TV critics when it comes to this season's 24: While it's not as bad as its previous Bauer-family centric season, the twists it has taken recently are making it a "pathetic parody of itself." That "pathetic parody" line comes from the Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik who doesn't understand why anyone with any degree of intelligence is still watching this season, whose exploits have included:

-- An attack on the White House by a group of terrorist thugs abetted by a security guard.

-- The murder of a U.S. senator whose chief of staff was a traitor, who also wound up dead.

-- The violent seizing of the president who was forced at gunpoint by African terrorists to read a statement on a live internet feed denouncing the United States' military intervention in a fictitious African nation overrun by warlords and whose democratically elected president was saved from terrorist clutches by Jack Bauer, after Bauer pretended to be working with his captors.

-- The shooting and burying alive of an FBI agent by terrorists who later was saved and was running around the nation's capital because her wound was apparently only of the flesh wound variety.

-- The downing of two American commercial airliners by the African terrorists, abetted by other home-grown terrorists, including one over the D.C. Mall near the Washington Monument.

-- The torture of a couple of evil terrorists.

-- A near meltdown of a chemical plant, saved by the plant manager who died from exposure to the chemicals but saved his employees.

-- A Blackwater-esque company got its hands on bio-weapons, after masterminding the actions of the African terrorists.

-- Jack Bauer was exposed to the contents of one container of said toxic material, and he's been told there is no cure to his condition, except for some experimental technique which requires the DNA of a close relative. Now Jack's having debilitating seizures and won't let his daughter offer DNA to possibly save him.

-- A former U.S. agent turned bad/turned good/turned bad and killed a top FBI official, plus orchestrated the detonation of a bomb that killed other FBI agents. That and he helped a fellow baddie get away with a canister of the weaponized bio-chemicals.

-- The attempted (?) suicide of the head of the Blackwater-esque private army company at the demand of an unnamed cabal of "others" who are trying to exact bad things on the American government and, by extension, the American public.

"I have to ask sincerely," critic Zurawik wrote after seeing the latest episode, "Why are you still watching this show? Isn't your intelligence insulted by what it has become and the way it tries to exploit your feelings?"

Zurawik added:

"The Jack-is-dying-and-only-his-daughter-can-save-him storyline is debasing. Watching [Kiefer] Sutherland mimic the sudden waves of pain, the need for an injection, the loss of memory and tendency to repeat himself Monday gave me new respect for the actors on daytime soap operas. Their performances in many ways are far more honest than Sutherland's . . . All I see is a great series gone bad."

Over at New York Magazine's Vulture blog, which regularly rates the "absurd" factor of events on 24, joked about the fact that Jack's daughter Kim has a daughter named Teri (after his late wife) -- making Jack a granddaddy -- as well as the fact that it's painfully obvious that Kim's DNA will save Jack. Equally as implausible was the supposed suicide via the red pill from Jonas Jolie Hodges' attorney's doppelganger which we know didn't succeed because he was shown in previews for next week. (Way to spoil your own surprise Fox!)

But I won't go as far as Zurawik or New York Magazine. While it's true that you have to suspend a whole heck of a lot to try and enjoy 24, I don't think it has quite jumped the shark or that Sutherland's acting belongs on a daytime soap. I think the first half of this season was really strong, then it slacked off a bit in the middle, as a 24-episode show tends to do.

The killing of Larry Moss last week by Tony Almeida was shocking, an OMG moment, even though I hate the vacillating loyalty factor that is Tony. Additionally, I'm not a fan of the nakedly obvious Kim-saves-Jack storyline, because we already know Sutherland has signed on for an eighth season to be set in New York City, or of the Jonas-Jolie-Hodges-isn't-dead-yet because the previews blew that fact.

All that being said, I'm not ready to kiss of 24 yet. It's been fun this season and redeemed itself from Jack Bauer's previous bad day, which was very, very bad. I'm just hoping the conclusion of this seventh day isn't a huge let-down.

Do you think 24 has become a "pathetic parody of itself" or do you find that it's still fun?

Image credit: Fox/AP Kelsey McNeal via this web site.

Pondering '24:' The Seventh Day Thus Far

What are we, a little more than halfway through one of Jack Bauer's very bad days on 24? Thus far in Jack's day we've seen:

Two commercial airlines were downed by terrorists. Hundreds are dead.

A chemical plant almost leaked deadly chemical into the air in the Midwest, however area residents and employees were saved by the quick thinking actions of the plant manager, who died from his exposure.

The First Gentleman was shot, kidnapped, rescued and then operated on. Now he's recovering in the hospital and has just spoken with his president wife on the phone.

A U.S. invasion targeting African warlords, who overthrew a democratically elected leader and brutally savaged their fictional country, commenced.

The democratically elected leader of that fictional country and his wife were abducted by the terrorists, then freed by Jack Bauer & Co.

The White House was infiltrated by terrorists who apprehended the U.S. president, whose face the head terrorist slapped. The president was forced at gunpoint to read a statement condemning the U.S. invasion over a live internet stream.

At least one White House aide was executed in front of the president, after many Secret Service members were killed.

Jack Bauer's good friend and former head of the disbanded Los Angeles Counter Terrorism Unit, sacrificed himself in order to provide cover for Jack so Jack could save the president. (How many presidents' lives has Jack saved? Anyone got a count?)

A key U.S. senator's chief of staff (a secret badie) was tortured, survived, was brought to the hospital then killed shortly before the senator for whom he was working was killed, both of 'em executed by an associate of the bigger cadre of bad guys who were funding the African warlords.

The president's chief of staff resigned because he thinks Jack Bauer killed a bunch of people he didn't kill AFTER the chief of staff let him out of custody.

A bio-weapon is now loose in Washington, D.C. in the hands of Angelina Jolie's dad, the head of a sinister company which runs a private, for-profit army, clearly meant to harken comparisons to the likes of Blackwater.

And now Jack Bauer -- who, during this one day has appeared before a Senate committee that was grilling him about his previous actions, has been put into the field by the FBI, was detained, then let go, then arrested, then let go, then fled and is now in custody again -- has been accidentally exposed to chemicals from the bio-weapon that he stole from the bad guys, but they got it back.

Phew! Just an ordinary day in the life of Bauer.

Some outstanding questions/observations:

-- Why, why is there another bad family member in the persona of the president's daughter Olivia running around? I had plenty of bad seed family member drama last season with Jack's father and brother.

-- Why does Larry Moss, head FBI dude, persist in leaping to wild assumptions that Jack has done wrong, gone mad and wantonly killed, when all day long he's proven his allegiance? Yet when the vice president ordered Moss NOT to enter the White House after Moss & Co. believed the terrorists had seized the president, he blew off the VP?

-- Do the characters of 24 experience some kind of special, miracle healing after they've been wounded, a la Lost's island? Otherwise, how do people like FBI agent Renee Walker, who was shot in the neck and buried alive, run around mere hours after sustaining serious wounds?

-- How many lives has Tony Almeida used up already? Is he on his last one yet? If you go by the promo, it seems as though he'll need it because Angelina's daddy seems quite agitated in the promo for next week.

Now we wait 'til Monday to see if Jack "survives" his exposure. But given the news this week that Kiefer Sutherland has signed on for an eighth season, I guess it's no big leap to guess that Jack'll be okay.