Spontaneous Musings

I should make dinner, but not hungry - possibly due to the chai tea and gluten-free almond sugar cookies I'd made earlier, while watching ER and The Starter Wife.

Ah Television. Yes, I am a bit of TV slut. I admit it. Always have been. Also have incredibly ecletic taste, which veers towards the off-kilter, cult half of the time. Plus, a huge weakness for serials - that requires committment, as opposed to episodic or anthology stories that don't.

Told Wales at Dinner last night, eating a nice steamed talipia with shrimp, artichocks and snow peas, with broccoli rabe, while she consumed her gnocchi, that Grey's Anatomy had without question "jumped the shark".

"Jumped the shark?" Wales asked. "What does that mean?"

"You're obviously not a tv geek," I replied to her bewilderment. "Jump the Shark as cjlasky once explained to me ages ago, is a term that is used to describe a show that has sort of jumped out of the range of logic into the neverland of mindboggling stupidity. The term was derived when Fonzi of the hit TV show Happy Days, donned a pair of skis and literally "jumped" a "real live shark" as a stunt to get ratings. Evil Knieval was a hit back then and they were copying his stunts - except to my knowledge even Evil didn't try to jump a real live (or animatomic shark). "

Grey's has done this. It came close to doing it last year with the Izzy/George/Callie storyline, but redeemed itself at the last minute. This year, alas, after a decent start, it did it. The writing now makes little to no sense. And you feel the actors and characters looking up at the writing gods and asking the time old question - "what's going on? Are you really stoned? Because this is ridiculous."

No, it wasn't the gay storyline. I actually liked that storyline - particularly Erica Hahn, played by Brooke Smith - whose character and character's reactions to things seemed rational and real. Her realization that she was gay, reminded me of several friends I've known over the years and I thought explained how they dealt with it. She was a tough, smart character.
And her sexual orientation, at least for the last two seasons in which she was featured was not an issue. Nor did it seem to be one here, so much as another part of her character.
Callie on the other hand, made little sense. Her reaction to Erica's reveal, was to go have sex with a guy to see if she was gay. Then to have the guy teach her how to give oral sex to a woman - which also made little sense. (From a heterosexual perspective - I have to admit, I prefer Callie and Mark's relationship and find Mark a bigger turn on and more interesting, but
I don't think the way they were writing the triangle really worked - I can't see someone doing that in real life, especially with people they work with, and as a professional surgeon.
Not without getting in trouble for it - in a major way. But then Grey's does push the envelope on suspension of disbelief a bit to the extreme. Always has.) How they wrote Erica out made no sense. That was the story they should have told - that was the Izzy story that would have been realistic. For Erica to have brought the hospital's license under review, and the doctors up on charges, and lost Callie in the process - would have worked a lot better than Erica just up and leaving like Burke did, abruptly. The abruptness was noticable and pulled me out of the story. But it wasn't her exit.

Nor was it that operating on pigs story. I'd seen crazier things. Can't see it happening in a hospital environment, but whatever.

It was two stories - one, the Izzy/Denny romance being rekindled after Denny died. Okay. Last time I checked this was a show that took place in a world in which ghosts don't exist. It's not Ghost Whisperer. Apparently they are trying to do Truly, Madly, Deeply - the sappy film with Alan Rickman (which because of Alan Rickman - was not that sappy.) with a touch of PS:I Love You thrown in. This would work if it were written for last year, before the George/Izzy romance, when she was still grieving, still struggling. Not Now. After she broke up George's marriage. After she declared her love for George. After she and George broke up and she got involved with Alex and decided she cared for Alex. If they wanted to do this, they should have not done the George/Izzy bit. And no, they can't just pretend George/Izzy didn't happen, and go backwards. I know they aren't doing the brain tumor - that's apparently a mislead.
Which is a good thing, because I've already seen one soap opera do that storyline, really don't want to watch it again.

The second story - is the interns cutting one another - which on it's face had great potential. But it was done too much as a back sub-plot. We did not get to see Meredith discuss it with her sister, or with her friend, Sadie. We just saw her ask Sadie why - "what's up with you." That was it. Nor did we get much information on Meredith's relationship with Sadie and what they did in the past. Derek got to hear the embarrassing stories, the audience got a stupid voice over narrative and lovely background music.
Note to writers - it's hard to care about your characters if you keep us at a distance.
I have no idea who Sadie is, I don't care about her, and I sort of agree with Cristina, she's annoying and an idiot. We've only seen her via Cristina's pov and Derek's to a degree.
As a result - it was hard to be that invested in the whole opening up Sadie and taking out her appendix, and oh god, what if she dies - bit. It was half-assed. Which is a shame, because it could have been interesting - and was one of the reasons I was tuning in.

The writing has been off this year. Good for about four episodes, really bad for the rest.

Ugly Betty on the other hand, got better. Apparently Lindsey Lohan's eight episode arc got sliced to four because she's such a royal bitch to work with, literally. Everyone hated her and could not wait for her to leave. So, the writers went back to what worked - the chemistry between Amanda, Betty, and Mark - down-sizing Christina and the mother's roles and writing out Alexis. Focusing more on the business and less on the soapy hijinks between Daniel and Willemenia, not to mention all the stupid romantic entanglements from last year. The last three episodes have actually been quite good. I adored the one with Amanda moving in with Betty, and this week's is amongst my favorite - it's poke at affirmative action was actually good and realistic. It discussed the topic from both sides in a reasonable fashion.

ER has also been relatively good this season. Less over-the-top and more like it was in the early years, when I loved it. I gave up on it for a while - when they kept going to Africa and kept doing weird shoot-outs. (What is this ER or 24?) The focus on Neela, Dr. Banfield,
Gates/Sam, and Morris - with the old series regulars, Dr. Green, Romano, Weaver, and Luca/Abby popping in, has worked. It's writing matchs House's as far as medical dramas go.
It was always more realistic than the other ones out there. I'm loving Neela's storyline this year. Sort of identify with her, in an odd way.

House has also been good, I usually watch it live or the very next day. The dynamic between Wilson/Cuddy/and House continues to evolve and enhance the series. Helps that the three actors are so good and complement on another so well. Also enjoying the interaction between supporting characters - Thirteen/Forbes(Omar Epps character), Cameron/Shane. It's a medical drama that does a good job of using each case as a means of describing a problem with the main character or exploring one. Consistently and tightly written. Unlike Grey's.

The best written show that I'm currently watching or rather the one I'm enjoying the most at the moment and am reluctant to delete from the old DVR is surprisingly enough Supernatural.

I adore this show. It's pure horror noir. Tightly written. Consistent in its thematic structure and mythology, not to mention the rules of its verse (unlike Grey's). Yet at the same time unpredictable and rather imaginative. Tough to do, four years in. Most shows start to crumble around this point. This one just continues to improve. There was only one episode this season that I thought was less than stellar. Also the characters continue to change and evolve. Sam has lost his innocence. Dean has lost his self-righteousness, he's filled with guilt and remorse. He no longer sees the world in black and white and he no longer believes the rules make sense. The show like most good noir is questioning the morality of the universe in which it inhabits, a relatively skewed version of our own self-righteously angry and religious mythos. It questions what it means to be human, what it means to be good or evil. And whether the line is as neat as one might think. Who are the good guys? Are we doomed? Or does our salvation lie in our ability to forgive and love and hope and help one another? Including ourselves? It's not politically correct - true noir isn't by the way, it tends to be pretty sexist and racist, which is why a lot of people abhor it and it rarely hits mainstream. Too dark and controversial. If you look deeper at the art form, you will notice that it is critical of its own racism and sexism, but doing so requires looking deeper at our own societial structure and our own world and realising that noir is at times just a dark mirror of it, emphasizing the bits and pieces we don't want to see, that lie in wait, for us in the shadows.