Category: Television

Laura Linney In THE BIG C – Keep Watching

Cancer is funny…at least it is in Laura Linney’s new show on Showtime, THE BIG C. Linney (You Can Count On Me) plays Cathy, a high school teacher that’s diagnosed with incurable melanoma. Funny, huh? Well, throw in a boyish husband (the fantastic Oliver Platt, so, so love him!) and a truly bratty son (Gabriel Basso) and you have an interesting premise for a show – mainly because Cathy chooses (at least for now) not to tell her immediate family of her diagnosis. This makes the audience believe she is brave in the face of adversity….or maybe just stupid?

Here’s the thing – Linney’s performance is as magnificent as you think it should be, but after viewing the first show it is unclear how Linney can sustain her character’s newfound bravery and not continue to make the other characters on the show seem really out of touch.

It is an interesting choice on the writers’ part to create a story arc of internal conflict. It’s difficult and is probably the reason they have to come up with more “brave” actions to demonstrate Cathy’s new attitude, e.g. giving her student Andrea (Gabourey Sidibe) a good talking to after arriving late to class. Unfortunately, Andrea’s dialogue is lacking in depth, making her for the most part, a bit too cliché.

The pacing is great for a half-hour show. Lots of information is given in a non-expository way, and Cathy’s crazy brother Sean (John Benjamin Hickey) could pan out to be the most interesting and the most comedic. Even though Oliver Platt’s biting into an onion as an attempt for reconciliation is pretty hilarious…and touching.

Tuning in again won’t be hard. Although classified as a comedy, the show has a lot of dramatic push, particularly when you take into account the subject matter. But it’s the extraordinary performances that allow THE BIG C to occupy a slot at the top.

True Blood Recap – Bravo, Denis O’Hare!

Oh, how I am loving the storytelling on True Blood this season. I cannot brag about this show enough. SPOILERS INCLUDED. Particularly the new additions…James Frain as the demented Franklin, the magnificent Denis O’Hare as Russell Edgington, and the incredibly underrated Alfre Woodard as Lafayette’s crazy mother Ruby Jean. Sure, last night’s performance was generally a recap on stuff the audience already knows – mainly Eric’s gripe with Russell and the telling of it to the “authority” and the exasperating “heaven-like” world that somehow allows Bill to walk around in daylight. Why? We’ll have to tune in again. Annoying? Yes!  This annoyance hangs around because of the unfortunate problem of having some story lines more interesting than others and the need producers feel to stretch these stories for as long as possible. It was the bump in the road True Blood hit last season with the character of Mary Ann.

There are gems in the latest episode “Everything is Broken” – primarily the schizophrenic Ruby Jean’s statement that “Maybe God loves fags,” after witnessing her son’s afterglow from Jesus. It deepens her character even more since she’s been established as a raging homophobic. But my love for this episode is the story line centering around the brilliant performance of Denis O’Hare. Russell’s descent into madness is truly extraordinary. In a matter of moments the viewer sees Russell’s grief unhinge his already mad-like tendencies and catapult him into full blown lunacy. His gathering of Talbot’s (his lover of over 700 years) remains – gross and gooey as they are- to his chest, proves that even a vampire can experience heartache – even when the heart doesn’t beat. It rivals Eric’s sorrow over losing his Maker Godric, but Russell’s rage is unparalleled. Brilliant. If the Emmys didn’t pooh-pooh sci-fi/fantasy television, I would say O’Hare is definitely a contender for next year’s award season.

My only wish is that James Frain’s Franklin could have had a moment like Russell’s. His delightfully demented performance deserves a more memorable departure. Poor Franklin. I will miss you.

But I will still tune in again. There’s only three episodes left. Like Tara says, “It’s f*cked up…crazy!”

Housewives of DC – Yawn

Thanks to Whoopi Goldberg and the frenzy that ensued when she dared to ask the DC Housewife Michaele Salahi (yeah…you know her, the party crasher, but her and her husband are like…god forbid, the grownup versions of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt) appearing on THE VIEW to answer the question of whether or not she was indeed invited to the White House shindig she’s accused of crashing, I actually watched the first episode of HOUSEWIVES OF DC.  It’s an hour of my life I will never get back. What a yawn.

It’s like MTV’s THE REAL WORLD – but starring middle-aged women with children who have married money and have no problem spending it.  They’re so ill-equipped to deal with their own insecurities that they can only express their envy as contempt. This goes for the almost all branches of HOUSEWIVES – Orange County, Jersey, New York, and I’m sure it will appear in the latest installment – Beverly Hills.

The DC Housewives offer no real inside look into Washington society, because the Housewives have no access.  Why would they? Anybody in the center of Washington society is going to steer clear of this show. That’s why it’s such a bore…it offers nothing except showing us that even in DC ladies can drink too much and act a fool.  So why tune in to see these silly women when you can watch Snookie slam a beer and fall down…over and over again.

RACHEL ZOE PROJECT – Very Suspicious This Season

THE RACHEL ZOE PROJECT premiered last night on Bravo. I like what they have done in previous seasons and with the departure of the very likeable and very irritable Taylor Jacobson, it was highly anticipated to learn “the truth about Taylor.”

It’s just really unfortunate that Rachel, her husband, and employees, including Brad (who spent the previous seasons trying to keep up with Taylor) are busy creating spin to discredit and malign Taylor and her four-year history working with Rachel – tearing up her picture and throwing it in the fireplace? Really? That was necessary?  The show features some actual styling of a Vanity Fair photo shoot (it doesn’t hurt that Demi Moore makes a cameo), but the majority of the show is spent in a tirade of all the bad mojo that Taylor brought to the table – and revealing in a completely contrived way that Taylor stole from the company resulting in her firing – not her quitting. (Taylor Jacobson states she quit the company and her career hasn’t suffered much since she’s now working for herself and doing pretty well.)

Plain and simple, there’s too much backpedaling with the Taylor story. Anybody who watched the previous seasons knows that Rachel is a big pile of silly and has no skills in running a business. All of the attention devoted to discrediting Taylor actually casts suspicion on all of Rachel Zoe and company. And if this is what the show has in store all season, then sorry Bravo – I won’t be watching what happens.

Work of Art – Who Says?

WORK OF ART – THE NEXT GREAT ARTIST is yet another reality competition show on Bravo. The apparent brainchild of Sara Jessica Parker (her LOVE of art evidentially is so strong she wanted make a show about it )WORK OF ART is produced by her production company Pretty Matches in partnership with Magical Elves (the original producers of PROJECT RUNWAY before it went to Lifetime).  Like other shows, there is a big cash prize for the winner and the next great artist receives a private show at the Brooklyn Museum.

Casting has done a good job of gathering together a madcap group of artists, some who have been in the art world for many years and some newbies. The show’s host is the very cute China Chow – best remembered for her pixie-like lesbian character in the movie Head Over Heels. Apparently she comes from a family of art collectors, which is seems to be a strong enough skill set to make her a judge as well as a host. Unfortunately the pixie brightness she brought to the movie screen doesn’t carry over to the smaller one.  Too bad. Her lack of expression and monotone critiques make her come off as if she’d rather be sipping a cocktail at the bar at the MOMA.

I have to admit I’ve never heard of the judges – Bill Powers, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn and the Tim Gunn-like mentor Simon de Pury. But outside the Parsons world, who ever heard of Tim Gunn before he made a splash on PROJECT RUNWAY? But I don’t think my questioning is due to the lack of familiarity with the fixtures in the contemporary art world. I think it comes down to the parameters of the judging.

In PROJECT RUNWAY, there are guidelines in judging a garment – construction, execution, fit, fabric choice color, etc. Books, screenplays and stage plays are critiqued on structure, conflict, characterization and plot. These things are tangible parameters, although still subjective. But when you remove those parameters and replace them with feelings, then I think the judging is skewed.

The thing I question about WORK OF ART is – Just because someone tells you that your creation is not art, does that mean you’re not making art? In grad school I had a professor ask, “Does it move you?” Good or bad, does it move you? And the show reiterates that art is not only what you make, but how it makes you feel. So, just because these three people in charge don’t feel anything that means that art is not present? I know…I know it’s subjective, but that is what makes this show different from other competition shows. It lacks the strong parameters involved in judging that a show like PROJECT RUNWAY possesses.

I guess it just comes down to what Sondheim says, “Art isn’t easy.”