It’s 2007. A San Francisco reporter and loving family man is having a strange day. When Dan (Kevin McKidd) arrives at a restaurant to meet his wife for their anniversary dinner, a football game from 8 years earlier is playing on television. Then he wakes up in a cab, disoriented, but continues with his evening. The next morning, he wakes up in Golden Gate Park. He goes to his house to find a strange man living there. It’s 1987. His wife wakes up to find him missing, and his brother, a cop, hasn’t heard from him.

Time travel into the recent past is always fun, since we get to enjoy laughing about old music (10,000 Maniacs, anyone?), movies (Less Than Zero) and, of course, technology (giant, bricklike mobile phones). In Journeyman, however, the laughs are few, as eerie lighting and music build a sense of foreboding. Dan saves the life of a man about to let himself be hit by a streetcar. He continues to suspect that it’s all a dream. You can feel his fear when he returns to his wife to learn that he has been away for two days, and his wife’s as she wonders where he’s been.

Soon, our traveler is off again. He is in a car accident and disappears from the scene. (Something similar happened this season on Fringe.) He always seems to stay in San Francisco, although he pops up in various locations. There is no immediately visible pattern. People seem to be the unifying factors: Neil, the guy whose life he saved and Olivia, an ex-girlfriend.

Little details are introduced gradually, leaving the viewer to enjoy the mystery as it unfolds. In a show where the main character doesn’t know what’s going on, it’s more fun if the audience is just as lost. We’re also learning the character’s past. His wife used to date his brother. His girlfriend died in a plane crash. You share his frustration in the fact that he never knows when he will pop back in time, or where (when) he will land. And think what it would be like if you had to exist pre-internet now that you’re dependent on it for so many things.

The pilot brings more questions than answers; like, what if Dan talks to himself in the past? Or prevents the conception of his son? And if he sleeps with his old girlfriend, is that cheating?

This is the kind of stuff that will keep a viewer watching. You would think. Apparently, not too many people did keep watching, though, as the show only lasted 13 episodes.

The pilot comes to a satisfying conclusion. We learn, if not why Dan has been selected for this mission, at least what this group of journeys was meant to accomplish. He causes the death of the guy who he first saved, preventing that guy from killing his son, who grows up to save eight lives in a bus crash. So it looks like he is going to be evening out the balance between life and death, and possibly, finding out what really happened to Olivia. There’s a kind of feel-good ending where Dan promises his wife, “I’ll always come home.” The line sets the stage for a series of similar adventures.

First stumbled across Journeyman while trying to track down “Latneiro (Woob’s Sunrise Dub)” which was missing from every single Tone Tales From Tomorrow mix out there.

It led me to this album from the brief ambient offshoot NTone (originally Ninja Tone) sub-label of Ninja Tune.

A nice ambient dub (there seems to be a pattern here lately…) album.

Enjoy

Info

It was an interesting week last week as Hellen and I went to Taiwan for our long-awaited photoshoot. I can never cover the whole trip in just one post, unless I make it super-long. I know there are a lot of couples out there who are interested in our experience with Blue-Bay. Here I will try to recount our experiences as accurately as possible. This series is written for new couples out there. Hopefully it will answer some of the questions you may have, especially if you are sitting on the fence with whether to engage Blue-Bay or go overseas for a photoshoot.

Before I re-count my daily experiences, I will like to confirm or dispell some myths you may have on overseas photoshoot.

1. Before: I thought Taiwan has lovely weather

After: False! The truth is, we had really bad weather on our actual photoshoot day. We did check the weather forecast, but since we have already booked the ticket and taken our leave, we proceeded with the shoot. Last year, I went to Taiwan in May for a 8-day tour and the weather was fantastico… oh well… it did not turn out that way this time. It rained non-stop in Taipei on our photoshoot day, which forced us to abandon our original route and went to Taizhong instead.

2. Before: Taiwanese People are Very Nice

After: True! I have no complain about the attitude of the photographer, lighting assistant, make-up artist and driver who accompanied us all the way. Their service had been impeccable, and the photos did turn out nicer than we expected even though we did not have the best of weathers.  A shout-out to Kiwi, Baby, Ah-Zheng and Tong Ge, who were really nice to us and did the best job they could to prevent the photoshoot from becoming an utter disaster.

3. Before: The Photoshoot Schedule and Route is Flexible

After: False! I need to warn the couples out there, as there are some stuff that are out of our control. For example, the weather will prevent you from going to certain places. Also, there are several combination of places that you can’t really go to, due to the distance between them and the time you have. One thing I can suggest is for you to go to Blue-Bay Singapore, and affirm the route with the Taiwanese staff there. We wanted to have a photoshoot on another day as well due to the bad weather of the original day, but both the photographers and make-up artists were fully booked, we were unable to secure another timeslot. So if you feel that there is a possibility you will need another day for the shoot, do allocate more days to stay in Taiwan.

4. Before: The Gowns are Gorgeous…

After: True! I personally thought the gowns were beautiful and suited the Taiwan feel a lot.

5. Before: .. and so are the Suits!

After: False! I think I look fat in the tux… maybe because I am just fat… haha.. But those photos in which I wore my normal shirt turned out better IMHO.

6. Before: I Love Taiwan!

After: I still love Taiwan! Although there are things out of your control, there is still no denying that Taiwan has beautiful sceneries and when the weather is good, the pictures you can take will most probably trump any effort you can have in Singapore. Bottom-line is this: I will recommend Blue-Bay still, but I have to be honest about the short-comings and things that will be unexpected in your trip.

In my next posts, we will detail some of the experiences. Until next time!

Countdown to Wedding Day (19-06-10): 213 days

Often writers are considered standoffish individuals who work by themselves to accomplish his/her goals of a published piece of work.  This is not necessarily true for all writers.

I belong to a writer’s group.  We all have different skills and talents.  Some are superb editors, others are illustrators, while others make you clarify characters, point of view, or facts.  Together the group’s skills and talents help a writer work through the process of writing.  They offer fresh eyes and insights.  They are supportive, offering criticism that for me, aides me in polishing a piece for submission.

The benefits of belonging to a writer’s group are numerous.  The number one benefit for me is comradely, a belonging to and befitting a companion, or fellow journeyman in the art of writing.  With the aide of the writing group I hope to publish a book or two in my life time…if not I will have at the least found laughter and joy in the sharing of stories.

Thank you to the Beanery Writer’s Group!  Congratulations on the publishing of Volume #3:  Celebrating Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Tuesday: Sci Fi Exploration

After years of attempting to debut a successful science fiction pilot, the Big 5 networks seem to have accepted defeat at the hands of cable television. Viewers proved they are not interested in the sci fi fare offered by broadcast networks – “Reaper,” “Journeyman,” “Bionic Woman,” “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” and “Day Break” are among the sci fi shows that failed to make more than two seasons in the past three years. Instead, sci fi diehards turn to SyFy and BBC America to get their fix.

What does this mean for Doc Sonya’s recommendations to you? Since we’re exploring strictly broadcast shows, this means there are only a handful of sci fi shows even on the air, and of those, only one gets my recommendation.

Time to break up with…

• “Heroes”
  “Heroes” is a classic example of a show that debuted a phenomenal first season, became too hyped, and suddenly failed to live up to its expectations. While it is somewhat expected for shows to experience a sophomore slump, “Heroes” never climbed out of the pitiful ditch it dug itself into. Now in season four, “Heroes” is exploring Claire’s sexuality (yawn), killing off/bringing back to life Nathan and Hiro (like they’re really going to kill off series regulars), and failing to capitalize on its breakout star, Zachary Quinto.

Bottom Line: Grab season one on DVD; skip the rest.

Flings: Don’t require a whole lot of commitment from you. If it’s on, watch it. If you get distracted by something shiny, you probably won’t miss too much.

• “Flash Forward”

Flash Forward is ABC’s follow-up to megahit “Lost.” While it lacks the flair, intrigue, and mythology of Lost, “Flash Forward” has a fascinating premise – the issue is whether the execution is good so far.
The concept is that for two minutes and 17 seconds, everyone in the entire world blacked out and caught a glimpse of their lives six months in the future. Some premonitions were good, others bad, some intriguing, and some nonexistent. This show reminds me of CBS fan-favorite “Jericho” (2006-2008), which chronicled an isolated town dealing with a nuclear terrorist attack in America.

Bottom line: “FlashForward” would make for a fun disaster/action movie, but as a TV serial, it needs to pick up the pace and make the characters into people we actually care about, or it’ll meet “Jericho”’s demise.

Casual dating: These shows are not the crème de la crème of the genre, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have the potential. These are campy and/or guilty pleasures, just short of appointment TV but good enough that you’ll stick around to see the end of the episode. Feel free to indulge if you like what you see.

• “The Vampire Diaries”
  This show is the CW’s response to the vampire trend, and for once, it seems like the CW actually made a decent creative decision. Based on the ’90s novels of the same name,”The Vampire Diaries” follows Elena, a teenager whose parents recently died in a car crash, as she navigates high school – with a vampire (no one knows, of course). Oh, and the vamp’s devious older brother spooks the town too.I like Ian Somerhalder (Boone from “Lost”) as older brother Damon. The rest of the characters, however, are written poorly and stereotypically; I wouldn’t be surprised if the character’s name on the script reads Best Friend or Main Character or Good Vampire. We don’t get a sense of a three-dimensional person on the show. We just see how an undeveloped personality reacts to events.

   

  Bottom Line: I won’t deny it’s a good choice for those into the vampire thing. However, for a similar premise but better characters/plots/actors, check out the WB’s “Roswell” on DVD. You won’t regret it

• “Fringe”
  “Fringe” was a huge critical accolade when it debuted last fall, but the furor seems to have died down a bit since then. The show is about a team that investigates (you guessed it) the paranormal. “Fringe” does well with the mythology, meaning the overarching storyline is strong, sensational, and sometimes surprising. However, given that “Fringe” comes from “Alias” and “Lost” creator J.J. Abrams, I don’t think it is living up to its potential.Bottom Line: It’s a slightly more difficult show to get into than, say, “The Vampire Diaries.” It’s also got a more serious overtone. Not bad for a show in its sophomore season, but it certainly has yet to find what it is creatively capable of.

Long-term dating: Arguably the best show currently on television…

• “Supernatural”
  “Supernatural” debuted on The WB in 2005, the WB’s final year as a network. It stars my future husband Jensen Ackles Dean and Jared Padalecki as Sam, brothers who hunt things that go bump in the night. In a nutshell, Dean and Sam lost their mother to an evil demon when they were kids, causing their father to delve into the world of the paranormal and raise his sons as hunters.What started out as a procedural premise quickly turned into the most campy, addictive show on TV. While the standalone episodes are fun, witty and often scary, “Supernatural” creator Eric Kripke’s true mastery is the show’s mythology. There is more to Dean and Sam than the show ever let on during the first season, and now that “Supernatural” is in its fifth (and potentially final) season, viewers can see the threads that were sewn nearly four years ago. The show is unafraid to throw certain stereotypes on their heads. For instance, this season the mythology is stopping God’s angels (they’re the antagonists) from unleashing the Apocalypse – oh, and while Sam and Dean are at it, they need to locate God and stop Lucifer from rising.

   

  Whatever the season’s mythology, “Supernatural”’s strength is undoubtedly the bond between Sam and Dean, which is unlike any portrayal I’ve ever seen on TV. One second, the brothers are pulling a prank on each another, and the next, they’re making deals with demons to save each other’s lives.

Bottom line: Still not convinced? TV Guide magazine critic Matt Roush recently wrote, “My decision to get busy and catch up on (the previous seasons of) Supernatural was the best call I made all year.”

-Sonya Chudgar

I was due for a short vacation in Japan two years back. I’ve booked the ticket through an agency so when I received the ticket I didn’t check the details.
In NAIA, though I know where to check-in and though it was my first time to fly alone, I decided to ask the airport guard, “Boss, dito ba ‘tong flight na ‘to?” showing him my e-ticket.
“Ay, sir,” scratching his head, “Tignan n’yong maigi oh. Bukas pa ho ‘yang flight na ‘yan.”
I immediately called nanay who saw me off, “Nay! Bumalik kayo! Bukas pa ang flight!”

All the efforts of preparing for that flight. Gone! I already told my friends that I’ll be gone that day. Shame! Shame! Shame!
I immediately called ate Pam, my pick up in Japan, “Ate, bukas pa ang flight ko. Mali ang agency!” and did not leave the house that day. Ang alam nila nasa Japan na ako.

The next morning, I was excited again! Japan! Here I come!
“Sir, we’re really sorry, delayed po ang flight today. All passengers will be checked in a hotel or you may opt to choose to go back home and we’ll provide you Php 500.00 for the inconvenience,” said the ground steward on my 2nd attempt to go to Japan.
“Haaaaahhhhhh!?!?!?!?!?!? Babalik nanaman kami????” screamed Nanay, “Oh James (driver), ‘di nanaman tuloy ‘yung flight,” they will pick me up again from NAIA.
I called up Japan again, “Ate, hindi nanaman tuloy. Bukas pa.”
“Ano ba ‘yan!?” Ate Pam, shocked, again, “Excited na kami sa’yo.”
“Eh paano pa ako?”

On my third attempt, nanay told me, “Hindi na kita ihahatid, si James na lang, napapagod na akong maghatid araw-araw. Baka matuloy ka na kapag ‘di kita ihatid,” and I arrived in Japan that day. At last, nakarating din sa Japan. Ang alam ng friends ko three days na ako sa Japan.

Classic Japanese “Peace Sign” in Mt Fuji

Segurament els germans Gallagher matarien per firmar un tema com Two of a Kind, o Courtney Taylor i els seus The Dandy Warhols vendrien la seva ànima al diable per tenir una cançó com Journeyman. Els creadors d’aquetes dues joies pop són quatre australians que responen al nom de The Lovetones i que acaben d’editar el seu quart treball, Dimensions. Amics d’ Anton Newcombe, el líder/gurú dels The Brian Jonestown Massacre, qui col·labora en el disc, aquest australians van néixer al 2002, obrint els concerts de Mosrrissey per Austràlia, i han editat un bon grapat de singles i tres albums plens de bones maneres. Però és en aquest nou treball on les composicions del grup han adquirit majors magnituds. S’allunyen de la distorsió per crear unes textures molt properes a les creades pels Beatles de Rubber Soul; Two of a Kind o Look at the Waves són dos bones exemples. També miren a Bowie per composar Song to Humanity, als Byrds més descaradament pop a Journeyman o a Pink Floyd en el tema instrumental que obre el disc, Moonlite Suite. Atrevint-se amb el A New Low in Getting High dels Massacre d’Anton Newcombe, tema que es troba en el disc d’aquests …And This is Our Music, el mateix on varen col·laborar els Lovetones; de fet, la banda de Newcombe és una de les màximes influències d’aquest Dimensions, juntament amb els Beatles de Lennon

.

Sense arribar al nivell dels àlbums de The Brian Jonestown Massacre, aquest Dimensions és un excel·lent treball de pop psicodèlic, senzill en plantejament i concepte, però molt ric en textures i melodies. El resultat és un disc immediat, de temes curts i variants, que un cop arriba a la seva fi es inevitable tornar-lo a punxar.

I have a big list compiled of all the different tattoos that I plan on getting. The leg tattoo I got on my leg was just one of two David Shrigley tattoos I’m going to get, but the second one I still need to decide on.

I have narrowed the choices down and below are the various options that remain. To be honest I’m pretty much decided on one already, but it’s a good excuse to share some of David’s genius. These are from various books of his, all of which are just amazing. Check out his website and here’s an animation of his.

Have a look and let me know you’re thoughts.

The first choice

I really love this drawing

I think this is the one I'd like permanently on my body...(and that's my thumb!)

I love this. Makes me want 3 (but that's just crazy)

This is hilarious but has a bit of a negative vibe so I don't think it'd fit with my overall positive asthetic.

So there you have them. I spent a few hours going through the 5 books of his that I own, putting little tabs of paper nest to drawings that I love and would be good for tattoos. Then I had to narrow them down in a big way as there’s so many I love.

As I said in the writing under the picture, the one I’m leaning towards right now is the rare star. Maybe in a few years I’ll get another Shrigley tattoo, but for now two should definitely be the limit. After that I’m getting one of my drawings tattooed onto me and I have many other ideas. I’ll post about them in the next few weeks.

Let me know what you think of these drawings and which one you think I should get tattooed onto me. It’s ok, I won’t listen to any of you. =D

Speak to you soon,

Nice seeing you,

Joe

The new TV season is full swing, and yet here I am, still talking about last season. Of course, I’ve farted around for a couple of weeks doing very important things (not playing Halo 3: ODST, no matter what my endless tweets and Raptr updates will say), and am only now getting around to putting this up. Please forgive my tardiness.

Though I don’t want to say too much about the new season, which is just coming into shape, I will say that some shows (Fringe, House) have yet to get back to full strength, some (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Dollhouse, Lie To Me) have come back with a confident bang, and some new shows (Community, Flashforward) have really piqued my interest. One new show (Modern Family) made me think I will never trust another critic ever again. Unless something really dreadful comes along, I think I have my Worst New Pilot of the 2009-2010 Season winner already sewn up.

Anyway, here are my final thoughts on the 2008i-2009 season. There were originally going to be more YouTube clips on here, but I’ve had a dispiriting day watching them get taken down. Fox and NBC, sorry for infringing on your copyright, but all you did was get rid of some free publicity, as I was going to tell the world how awesome your shows were. Except for that clip from Heroes. That was up because Angela Petrelli’s insanely histrionic reaction to her son’s death was the funniest thing of the year. So I can understand that one. And now, on with the hyperbole…

Best New Show: Sons of Anarchy

If one were to be unduly harsh, you could compare the first episode of Sons of Anarchy with the pilot of The Shield. Considering that is easily one of the most impressive and instantly captivating pilots ever made, there was little chance that showrunner Kurt Sutter could ever compete. That he made a pilot as good as the one that kickstarted his biker epic is a testament to his skill as a writer, and his decision to get Sopranos director/producer Allen Coulter in to co-direct it is exactly the kind of smart move that a good showrunner should make. The first few episodes were not perfect, but the building blocks were there.

What sets Sons of Anarchy apart from every other show debuting during the 2008-2009 period — even the eventually superb Dollhouse — is how quickly changes were made, and how confidently they were put in place. By the time season highlight The Pull came around, it was already shaping up to be essential TV, but that episode propelled it onto a completely different level of excellence. Ramping up the pace of the show and throwing one or two of the less interesting characters into terrible danger / potentially ruinous moral compromise, Sons of Anarchy hinted that it could become something that will rival the mighty Shield for complexity and dramatic power. It helps that it features one of the best ensembles on TV right now, filling out its main cast (which, let’s not forget, includes Ron Perlman, an impressive star-making turn from Charlie Hunnam, and relentless magnificence from Kim Coates) with guests spots for Mitch Pileggi, Drea DeMatteo, Jay Karnes, Dayton Callie, Maggie Siff, and the incredible Ally Walker, who blows everyone else away with her terrifying warrior mentality and fearless sexuality. And in season two, we get Adam Arkin and Henry Rollins. Seriously, what’s not to love? From all accounts, the second season is even more unhinged than the first, which is saying something considering the incredible brutality and amoral shenanigans from the first. I can’t wait to dive in.

Worst New Show: Parks and Recreation

Creators Greg Daniels and Michael Schur are not idiots, obviously, but this landed with a terrible splat and couldn’t convince me to hang around long enough to see if it would improve. Part of that was because I was mad at the dip in quality over at The Office. Was it fair to blame this show for that? Probably not. Parks and Recreation has been mooted for so long (remember when it was supposed to be a straight spin-off of The Office?) that their attention has probably been divided for a long time, and the fourth season of The Office was great. Nevertheless, the energy of one show definitely seemed to have been split between two, and the result was a listless hour of supposed comedy.

I have fought with myself over whether it would have been worth hanging around to see if it got better, but then I remember little things that irked like the way the showrunners differentiated the talking head interjections from those of The Office — using two cameras for the faux-interviews instead of one — which drove me into fits of absurd rage. The Office already has trouble keeping the faux-doc format going, and this conceit draws even more attention to the fakeness of it all. Perhaps I’m just burned out on this format. ABC’s new comedy Modern Family has been heralded as the next great sitcom after just two episodes, with across the board raves. We watched last week’s pilot in a state of shock. Flamboyant gay stereotypes? Clunking, obvious jokes about the generation gap? Appalling overacting from everyone (with Julie Bowen being the worst offender)? A character misinterpreting the accent of a Columbian woman? (I say Columbian because Sofia Vergara is from Columbia. She’s probably expected to play someone from a different country in this.) Modern Family is exactly the kind of retrograde laugh-track-enhanced sitcom that seems almost archaic now, but because it’s filmed in a single camera faux-doc style, it’s treated as a cutting-edge exploration of modern American mores. Bullshit. It’s Everybody Loves Raymond. Dressing a raccoon in baseball gear doesn’t make it a baseball player. It just makes it a raccoon covered in sport gear. (Note to self: use less raccoons in metaphors. It just complicates things.)

I also remember one potentially funny scene in Parks and Recreation — involving hapless and strangely unlovable Leslie trying to convince a bunch of ill-informed citizens that her plans are worthwhile — failing to take off, and I realise that after this summer of purposely ignorant right-wing hijacking of the health-care town hall debates, this kind of scene probably won’t ever be funny again. Democracy failing to work because of the Crazification Factor getting in the way of intelligent debate is something I just can’t laugh at right now. What makes this turn of events most sad is that the concept is so full of potential, and yet it didn’t even work before the protests. I can’t figure out how you could take an idea this promising and fail to make something that mixes madness and profundity in the same way as The Office. Compare that to Knight Rider. That was always going to be shit. This should have been a potent mix of satire and ridiculousness. That’s why I have to put it in this category. Apparently it has found its stride in the second season, from what I’ve heard on the Hinternet. Sadly, the people who are saying that also keep going on about how Modern Family is hilarious. So, you know…

Best Title Sequence of the Year: Hung

The choice of music (I’ll Be Your Man by The Black Keys), the phallic objects in the background, the pace of it…

…It’s a perfect title sequence.

Best Pilot: Kings

From what I can gather, there was very little publicity for Kings when it made its way onto the screen. Many have said this was the reason for its failure to find an audience, though to be honest a literate curio like this was unlikely to ever become a breakthrough hit. Alternate histories? Playing with Biblical stories? Unappealing main characters? It just seemed like a real long shot. It was impressive to see NBC gamble on making the show in the first place, but as with the equally intelligent Journeyman, making a show and trying to make the show available to a wide audience are two different things.

To be honest, with Journeyman the hurt is greater. That show was less ambitious, but as a result was more likely to find an audience if given a chance. It also improved as it went along. Kings started off incredibly strong and then stalled a little. That’s the problem when a show gets a pilot this impressive. Written by showrunner Michael Green and directed by the underrated Francis Lawrence, Goliath (the name of the pilot) was like no other pilot I’ve ever seen. Even though it was made on a shoestring, it looked incredible. Even more appealing, it had a weird edge of fantasy even beyond the alternate earth conceit, with God interacting with certain characters in a matter of fact way even though the show did not explicitly preach Christian values.

Perhaps this more than anything alienated audiences: atheists might rebel against a show that openly debates the wishes of God, and Christians might be irked by this God not being a recognisable version of their God. While I fall into the first category, I don’t mind God turning up in fiction as long as It’s not used as a deus ex machina or Unexplainable Puppeteer (hello Battlestar Galactica) or as an accurate version of “our” God (a sky bully who gets pissed off if we don’t play by Its crazy rules). The version of God in Kings was not a big deal, but Its mysterious behaviour, and effect on the behaviour of the main characters, was fascinating.

As was the superb character King Silas Benjamin (not to mention his allies and enemies), and the superb use of New York locations (standing in for the fictional city of Shiloh) to give a sense of epic scale to the show, and the incredible cast… As I say, the show was fascinating to watch right up until its unfortunate cancellation, but it never quite lived up to the promise of that amazing pilot, simply because the pilot made you think you were watching the most amazing show ever. We weren’t, but it was damn good nevertheless. Even the slightly disappointing finished product was better than almost everything else on TV. You could practically sense the cult following develop as you watched, not to mention hear the knives coming out for it as you realise how odd the project was. We’re lucky we saw any of it, to be honest.

Worst Pilot: The Unusuals

Seemingly rushed into production as a result of the writers’ strike, The Unusuals matched an underwhelming concept with a poorly defined set of uninteresting characters, failed to find a consistent tone, and handed off directing chores to the ever-feeble Stephen Hopkins, a man who has never made even one good film (I remember liking The Ghost and the Darkness when I first saw it, but I fear I’m being kind). There was no way I was going to enjoy this.

The main reason for my annoyance is that there were some good actors in there who just couldn’t rise above the material or the execution. Some of the most interesting actors — both promising and established — flounder within the show’s poorly thought-through format, with some characters played as broad as possible and others reining in the madness. Jeremy Renner in particular looks like he’s wandered in from another show. Harold Perrineau does okay with his skittish character, while Adam Goldberg sucks all of the energy out of his scenes with a sour and unappealing demeanour, not to mention a terrible mustache. The conceit that a hypochondriac with a fear of death is partnered with a man who wants to die and yet seems blessed is one of those ideas that sounds great on the page and fails on screen.

As for Amber Tamblyn, playing a high-society girl trying to make it as a cop in the cuh-rayzee precinct, it was a more entertaining concept when rich-boy Carter turned up in E.R. That was only one of the shows this seemed to emulate. M.A.S.H., NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, Hooperman (for crying out loud): it was an echo of greater shows, a throwback to 80s cop dramas when they started to become more confident and complex. Sad thing is, we don’t want babysteps any more. We’ve moved on. The low ratings and inevitable cancellation of this show proved that. Let’s hope those good actors turn up in better projects now.

Best Pilot of the Year Not Selected For Series: Virtuality

I won’t go into how much I hated the Battlestar Galactica finale again, as I’m beginning to come across as a total crazy person who is obsessed with going on about it, but it did make me reconsider trying out Caprica, the Stoltzified spin-off. Why should I keep watching shows set in this universe, made by this team, who had so disappointed me throughout the last few seasons? Yes, Jane Espenson would be there too, and I love her work, but still, I cannot imagine being invested in this story any more. There is a good chance I’ll relent, because good SF is hard to find on TV at the best of times. Nevertheless, my annoyance remains.

You can imagine how uninterested I was in another Ronald D. Moore / Michael Taylor show (I was never fond of his BSG episodes), especially one that seemed so prosaic. Moore has stated in the past that he was interested in making BSG because he felt the urge to rebel against Star Trek’s chirpy universe and its reliance on holodeck technology to change up the show, which made Virtuality — a show about space travellers who use virtual reality technology to relax — a curious proposition. I resisted this too, and then relented after seeing the feeble Defying Gravity, which seemed to be drawn from the same template. Thinking Virtuality would be nothing more than a space soap along the same lines as the other network drama, I gave it a spin, expecting little.

I love it when I’m proved wrong like this. As much as Fox’s other new SF show – Dollhouse – Virtuality is a fascinating and challenging exploration of ideas, dramatically filmed and featuring an excellent cast. In fact, the cast is even stronger than that of Dollhouse, with excellent turns from Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Sienna Guillory, Richie Coster (who needs more work, stat), and the ever-dependable Clea DuVall. All the actors are on top form, but these four really stand out. As for the comparison with Defying Gravity, the only thing they have in common is being set in space. Virtuality is about so much more: our perception of reality and how it will inevitably be twisted by the lens we observe through, how technology can affect us emotionally, how we refuse to let it go even when it is obviously not doing us any good (an idea expressed far more clearly here than in Lee Adama’s ridiculous speech in the final BSG episode). While Defying Gravity really is a soap set in space (with one character seemingly completely defined by the pregnancy she once terminated, which is as regressive a character arc as is possible), Virtuality is about ideas. It’s proper SF.

At least, it was proper SF. Even though it was obviously incredibly ambitious and beautifully made (with top direction from Shades of Caruso favourite Peter Berg), and even though were was huge potential for relatively cheap but gripping drama, it was shelved. I’m utterly depressed by this turn of events. There was only one misstep in the whole pilot, with a nasty perception-rape sequence that made me uncomfortable. Reliance on rape plots always upsets me, but here even this most unpleasant of plot threads is used to further the show’s exploration of whether there is a gap between virtual and actual reality, and what happens to us when we lose track of the difference between the two. If the show was willing to treat something potentially exploitative as cleverly as this, we would almost certainly have seen a lot of very smart SF in the rest of the series. But no. While Whedon got lucky with Dollhouse, the Virtuality team saw their show taken away before they could go any further. The best thing I can say about it? It was better than most movies I’ve seen this year. It’s a crying shame there will be no more.

Most Unfairly Cancelled Show of the Year: Reaper

Patton Oswalt is a brilliantly funny and caustic man, but recently he broke my heart. In this interview, he explained how, while filming his turn on Reaper, he saw the crew and cast crushed by their parent network, The CW.

When I did Reaper, the episode I originally did was supposed to be the beginning of this introduction to this overall mythology, because they clearly were taking the Joss Whedon playbook: You have a monster of the week for a while, and then you start linking it all up, and you create this overarching kind of world and story. And in the middle of the week, the network just came down on them and said “No, go back to monster of the week.” And you could feel this deflation amongst the actors, because they really understood that they had to start putting mythology into things. The network was just like, “Nope!”

This is the network that, when it was The WB, cancelled Angel, so I already have a big problem with them. Now I have an even bigger one. It may have not become something more ambitious, but it was endlessly lovable, and became admirably silly in the second season. The first was funny, but at times the second season was funnier than many sitcoms. The monster-of-the-week format of the show, which had seemed so restrictive, sometimes ended up shoved into the cold open, with the rest of the episode dealing with silly relationship drama, Sock shenanigans, or sly mythology expanding business with recurring characters like Nina or Tony. This might not be as involving as Buffy, but it was never as blandly diverting as something like The Mentalist. It fell right in the middle, which is apparently deadly.

That greater focus on just being daft was working for us, but the lack of a coherent arc from week to week (other than Sam’s lacklustre efforts to get out of his contract, and the hints that he is a more important player in the battle between God and The Devil) seemed to doom it. More than any other show departing this year, this is the one we’ll miss. Goodbye to one of the most entertaining casts on TV, some of the most eccentric writing of the past few years, and most of all, goodbye to the best Devil in recent pop culture history. He may be showing up in Dollhouse, but will Ray Wise be this mischievous, charming, delightful? Ray Wise fans everywhere, please come together one last time to marvel at that beautiful, beautiful grin.

At least one of us is smiling, I guess. [Insert sad-face emoticon here]

Best New Double Act of the Year: Ray Drecker and Tanya Skagle - Hung

When compiling the list of best and worst characters, I had certain unspoken rules in place to stop myself from focusing exclusively on certain shows. Party Down’s cast of beautifully observed characters could have dominated the first list, and Knight Rider could have dominated the second. My biggest quandary was caused by Hung, HBO’s lovable male-prostitution-and-economic-disaster comedy that has so entertained us recently. How do I get to honour two of the funniest characters of the year without breaking that rule? As ever, inventing a new category is the perfect answer. Hung is a show that has a few tonal errors (what was going on with the horribly misconceived Jessica, played with occasional delicacy by Anne Heche?) and a very loosely defined season arc (two pimps fighting over Ray and his magical dong), not to mention some wasted actors (why hire Gregg Henry and put him in about five scenes?). At times, it felt like we were watching half a show.

Nevertheless, it became appointment viewing just because of the wonderful work of Thomas Jane and Jane Adams. Their chemistry, and their relentless bickering and grudging friendship, was the thing that made Hung exceed its limitations. It also made Shades of Caruso reconsider the talents of both actors. Thomas Jane was given moments of pathos which he has never really had a chance to play before, and he excelled, especially in the season finale. Jane Adams has always played sad-sack losers, but this time she was given a chance to give Tanya some nobility even as her plans fell apart around her. Both actors also got to show off their physical comedy skills, with Adams especially amusing during her many impotent temper tantrums.

It was their interplay that really held the show together. Even as other plot threads and arcs seemed to falter or shoot off in predictable directions, watching these two actors play off each other was more than enough to save the show. It’s notable that episodes where Ray and Tanya aren’t onscreen together were the weakest of the season, whereas the ones which explored their dependent relationship and accidental exploration of each other’s personality were the most satisfying. Hopefully the show continues to throw these polar opposites together next year.

Best New Couple of the Year: Sawyer and Juliet – Lost

Ah yes, the love triangle/quadrangle. The constant refrain of Lost doubters (and some fans) is that the show is wasting its time whenever it focuses on the relationship drama of Jack, Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet. “We don’t care about that shit! Show more Faraday!” Yes yes, love drama tends to make me go to sleep as well. Many shows are hamstrung by tedious relationship dramas: House is at its dreariest when Thirteen and Foreman, or Cameron and Chase, go on and on about their coupledom; Kings ground to a halt every time David and Michelle made goo-goo eyes at each other. Hell, even the otherwise perfect Party Down was at its least interesting every time Henry and Casey got together. So there is precedent.

However, I love the relationship drama from Lost for two reasons. One: at the end of the season, we see how far Jack has fallen from grace. We thought he was the square-jawed all-American hero who would bring everyone out of the wilderness like a be-stubbled Moses, but over time we see he’s a deeply damaged, semi-psychotic loser who – as we find out in the final episode of season five – even lied about his character-defining anecdote from the very first episode. How much of a loser is he? After pushing away the woman he “loves” with his whiny attitude and various emotional breakdowns, and after years of trying to figure out what his purpose is now that his dad isn’t around to torture him, he has two choices to make a difference in his life: a) man up and seek help for his depression, all while giving up on the thought of making a go of things with Kate, or b) detonate a nuclear bomb, killing everyone on the island, in the hope that it will change history and allow Oceanic 815 to land safely in LAX so he doesn’t have to put up with the mess he made of his life. I’ve said before that one of the things I love about Lost is that it shows the psychology of its characters in minute detail, and this final touch – showing how far people will go to avoid making simple changes in their lives because of their fear of what will happen if it fails – is the perfect metaphor for how we hold onto our broken selves even when we know how to make things better.

Two: It also gave us the wonderful, tragic pairing of Sawyer and Juliet, which justifies all of the sturm and drang to get there. So far, all of the pairings that have been tried were wrong somehow. Jack and Kate didn’t work because Jack is insane. Kate and Sawyer didn’t work because Kate keeps messing with Sawyer’s head. Jack and Juliet didn’t work because Jack was not even slightly into Juliet and was just using her to get over Kate. However, as soon as the fourth season ended with a shirtless Sawyer walking out of the sea towards a drunken Juliet, I knew we would get to see something go right. And, for the most part, it did, even though it was not to be.

It’s not just that the combined hottness of Sawyer and Juliet is so great that it probably melted most of the TVs in the world. It’s also not just that selfish Kate and crazy Jack were finally out of the equation. It’s even not just because seeing Sawyer and Juliet flirting while shooting people was the most awesome thing ever. It’s that there was barely any controversy in the relationship, which probably would have even survived the forthcoming Purge, somehow. It’s only when Kate returns to the island and reignites Juliet’s psychological damage (previously caused by the break-up of her parents, the infidelity of her ex-husband, and the death of her lover Goodwin) that it all goes horribly wrong. Did Sawyer still hold a candle for Kate? Probably. Did he love Juliet? I reckon yes, and I believe he would have done anything for her if she had given him the chance. All of this made the quadrangle emotionally powerful, as we finally had something to hang on to. Would Sawyer and Juliet survive the machinations of the island/Esau and Jacob? More than any other relationship in TV history (except for Fred and Wesley in Angel), my nerves were set on fire by the possibility that those kids might not make it after all. Of course…

Most Upsetting, Most Harsh, and Most Unfair Scene of the Year: The Incident finally happens – Lost

…we all know how it turned out. Nothing else this year made me cry as much as this.

Damn you, stupid TV show! Damn you for being so fucking mean! And damn you Emmy voters for not giving nominations to Elizabeth Mitchell and Josh Holloway. They were amazing all season.

Worst New Couple of the Year: Luke and Bess - In Treatment

In Treatment’s second season deviated dramatically from its source material — the Israeli drama Be’Tipul — when it moved main character Paul Weston from Maryland to Brooklyn, allowing the show to dramatise his dislocation from his family, as well as to provide a reason for why he suddenly has so many new patients. This meant that we lost the chance to see season one patients Amy and Jake return, this time as a divorced couple fighting over their son, leading to the creation of two new patients, Luke and Bess. With their marriage in tatters and resentment flying between them, their son Oliver suffers terribly, putting on weight and falling into depression as his parents either fight for custody of him or, amazingly, against custody.

None of the characters in this show are particularly nice to Paul, but the games Luke and Bess play with him, using his advice as justification for a serious of awful, selfish choices, were worse than the usual antagonism people show their therapist. Many times during the season I was horrified by their behaviour, and by the time the season finished they were openly talking about how their lives had been ruined by their marriage and how they wanted another chance at what they had with barely any regard for Oliver’s well-being. When Paul finally loses his temper with them in episode 28, it elicited a round of applause from us. Figuratively speaking. And to be honest, he should have been even angrier with them.

Of course, this being In Treatment, these two horribly selfish people are written so well that we can see their point of view — and their humanity — clearly enough that even at their worst we cannot completely write them off. Their eventual remorse is a relief, but it’s still not enough considering how completely both parents are oblivious to the young boy’s needs. Thankfully, Paul is there to prove to Oliver that he will still be there for him, in some respect. His final scene with Oliver, talking to him via “phone” in his office, started a deluge of tears from this admittedly weepy viewer. If Oliver escapes this miserable situation with his psyche intact, it will have nothing to do with his parents.

Most Underused Character of the Year: Boyd Langton - Dollhouse

Whedon has a talent for peppering his casts with older character actors playing the “parents” to the younger crew. With Buffy we had Giles, in Angel there was Wesley (though his efficacy is doubtful; he’s arguably more flawed than any of his compatriots), and Firefly had Shepherd Book. These stern characters with hearts of gold gave their respective shows some kind of grounding when things got wacky, though Whedon wasn’t averse to making them run through some ridiculous hoops (Book’s mad hair, Wesley’s various pratfalls, Giles’ guitar playing). Sadly, while Langton got a chance to be silly in the disappointing comedy episode Echoes, he rarely got a chance to do anything interesting either. Many characters got to have interesting arcs and secrets, but Langton seemed to be getting less and less screentime as the series wore on. Making him head of security broke the student-mentor relationship between him and Echo, but then this might be Whedon trying to throw his own archetypes out, confounding our expectations. That he would give handler-duties to someone who appears to have an unhealthy sexual attraction to Echo (I’m talking about the plasticine-man known as Ballard) shows there might be something to that.

Nevertheless, it is a shame to cast someone like Harry Lennix — who has intense onscreen presence and then some — and then not give him as much to do as possible. His new role means he will interact more with Olivia Williams, meaning the two best actors on the show get to bang heads together: joy! That promotion, along with his new connection to Whiskey/Dr. Saunders, suggests he will be given more to do in the second season, but nevertheless, his relative inaction in later episodes was one of the few things I didn’t like about the improved half of the first season.

Most Entertaining Villain of the Year: Gemma Teller Morrow – Sons of Anarchy

One of the great pleasures of Sons of Anarchy is how it mixes up its Shakespeare. The debt it owes to Hamlet has been acknowledged by creator Kurt Sutter, but less attention has been paid to his shameless steal from Macbeth. Gemma Teller Morrow — former wife of SAMCRO leader John Teller — at first seems like a strong biker chick, but by the end of the pilot episode has revealed herself to be a conniving, power-hungry Queen whose sense of morality has been twisted until she will do anything to protect her family and the direction of the gang, a fact proved by her attempt at driving Jax’s junkie wife Wendy to an overdose. Later in the season she apologises to Wendy for this act, but even then she’s only doing it because she’d rather her son stay with a recovering junkie than return to his longtime sweetheart Tara. Plus, she does seem to be implicated in John’s death, possibly committed by her current husband Clay Morrow, which appears to have been done to prevent a change of direction towards legitimacy for the biker gang.

The most miraculous thing about this character is that she has dispelled my previous reservations about the talents of Katey Sagal. I’ve complained about her terrible voicework on Futurama before, where she leaves no joke intact, but I had suspected her dramatic work was not as shaky. She was great as John Locke’s departed love Helen in Lost, for example. In Sons of Anarchy, she’s even better, outacting even Ron Perlman when she’s in full flow. This display of Macchiavellian sneakiness got even more entertaining as the season progressed. There was a certain amount of character modulation during the latter half of the season, with some of her excesses toned down, and the horribly stagy confrontations between her and Tara tweaked until they sounded like actual human conversations, but even so, her Lady-Macbeth-esque manipulations of all around her were a source of delight even when she misfired a little. Gemma, as Journey almost said once, don’t stop conniving.

Least Entertaining Villain of the Year: Miguel Prado - Dexter

Dexter sure does have some crappy nemeses. In the first season, he goes up against his own brother, played with ridiculous camp evilness by Christian Camargo. In the second season, he is forced to conquer his evil girlfriend, manifested by Jaime Murray with a bag of absurd tics even more annoying than those of Dexter’s sister Debs, who is played by the equally dreadful Jennifer Carpenter. In the fourth season we’re getting John Lithgow. My memories of his madness from De Palma’s Raising Cain do not bode well for any Over-Act-O-Meters used to track the progress of this show, though I reckon he will be infinitely more entertaining than Dexter’s other “villains”.

Last year we got to see Jimmy Smits contend with the usual quota of ineptitude, improbable motivation, and mustache-twirling obviousness that comprises the Dexter Big Bad, and he made a meal of it. Amping up his intensity to sky-high levels, Miguel Prado went from saint to madman in the blink of an eye, all pretense at showing him as a morally complex human thrown out of the window with a haste even this most feeble of shows has never exhibited before. His cluelessness meant his occasional victories against Dexter relied upon our “hero”’s IQ dropping 100 points, which is a flaw that has run through the show from the beginning. Prado would then, naturally, make a bunch of mistakes, all the while chewing scenery like a murderous Donald Sinden. I say he was the least entertaining villain of the year because watching his character arc was deeply unsatisfying, with him changing his personality from moment to moment in order to move the plot, and not vice versa, but I did get a lot of pleasure from his reaction after he finally kills a bad guy.

Nastiest Villain of the Year: Nolan – Dollhouse

I can’t make any glib observations about this. Whedon is an avowed feminist, and this new show seemed to be a peculiar expression of that worldview, drawing both perplexed condemnation and optimistic readings. The fact that the show didn’t immediately say that the Dollhouse was a bad place threw a lot of viewers (including myself), but I’m sure a lot of Whedon’s fans (again, including myself) hoped that things would be clearer in the long run.

By the end of the season it was obvious that the Dollhouse tech was meant to be The Worst Thing That Has Happened To Humanity Ever, and not just because it brings about the end of the world (or at least, the end of Humanity). The most graphic and upsetting example of this comes in the excellent episode Needs, where the Actives come to and “escape” their prison (but only because they are allowed to). Drawn to the terrible things that have made them volunteer for Activeness, we see November visiting the grave of her child, and Echo deciding to stay behind to rescue her fellow Actives (surely this should worry the Dollhouse executives a bit more). Sierra, who I’d never found to be particularly compelling, goes to see the man who has paid the Dollhouse to make her an Active. Any doubt that the Dollhouse is a force for evil is removed once we find out that Nolan (played with oily menace by Vincent Ventresca) has paid the Dollhouse to turn her — a woman who once refused him — into an Active just so that he can violate a woman her whenever he feels like it. As Couch Baron says here, there truly are no words that can describe how awful this is. It was the most potent way to show how dreadful this technology is, and upset me deeply. The bad taste remained for the rest of the season. How rare for a network show to explore this kind of moral depravity without shying away from it.

Best Cast of the Year: Party Down

Just as with this year’s Best New Double Act category, I created this category last year to give shout-out to Reaper’s wonderful cast, which featured a host of great actors, especially Ray Wise, Tyler Labine, and Ken Marino. This year, Party Down gets a nod for featuring so many great actors, including Ken Marino. If I’d been blogging when Veronica Mars started, I probably would have highlighted the terrific cast of that show too, which would have meant discussing Ken Marino’s turn as sleazy private investigator Vinnie Van Lowe. Basically, Ken Marino seems to be my weakness. If he’s around, I am helpless.

Which is not to say Party Down worked solely because of him. As I’ve mentioned at length in my Best New Characters award list, Jane Lynch is breathtakingly good as Constance Carmell, and her replacement (Jennifer Coolidge) was just as good. Of the core cast, I’d highlight Ryan Hansen too, playing the adorably clueless Kyle Bradway — basically Dick Casablancas with a heart of gold. His vapid interactions with Jane Lynch are the highlight of many episodes, and he even manages to make tolerable the time spent with Martin Starr, here doing worryingly convincing work as the deeply unpleasant Roman DeBeers. He’s probably the weak link in the cast, though I would also become annoyed by the endless hipsterish emotional evasions of Casey Klein, played by Lizzy Caplan. (Side note: I think it’s fair to say that, thanks to real-world annoyances too numerous to count, I automatically take against any character on TV who spends all of their time on the phone instead of doing their job, or while other people are trying to talk to them. Those caveats are meant to signify that Jack Bauer is not to be considered one of these people. When he’s on the phone, he’s actually saving the world).

At the heart of this amazing ensemble is Adam Scott, formerly playing Palek the Vulcan Inseminatron from Tell Me You Love Me, and now utterly rehabilitated from that indie-movie-aping earnestness after his incredibly bold turn in Step Brothers. Here he is required to be in enormous emotional pain for the majority of the time, and it’s a credit to him that playing a completely shut-down shell of a man doesn’t mean he isn’t funny. His ability to mix up this world-weariness and emotional vulnerability with deadpan wit is essential to the success of the show. He’s Tim-from-The-Office, but even more pathetic. You weep for him in every episode.

So, they’re a fantastic core group, but they’re not the only reason Party Down wins this award. Just as with 30 Rock and Arrested Development before them, this show manages to get some of the best character actors around to populate the secondary cast. In the first season we saw Ken Jeong, J.K. Simmons, Steven Weber, Marilu Henner, Joe Lo Truglio, Mather Zickel, Joey Lauren Adams, Molly Parker, Breckin Meyer, Rob Corddry, Rick Fox (as himself), George Takei (also as himself), not to mention — for the Veronica Mars fans out there — Kristin Bell, Enrico Colantoni, Daran “Cliff McCormack” Norris, Ed Begley Jr., Alona Tal and Jason Dohring. Matched up to the best sitcom scripts of the year, there was no way this show was going to fail. Even though I’m agnostic on the appeal of Megan Mullally (drafted in to replace Jane Lynch in season two), I have a strong feeling she will be magically transformed by this most glorious of shows.

Worst Cast of the Year: Parks and Recreation

I feel a little ill, because I’m about to criticise the casting of a show that has Amy Poehler in the lead role. Amy Poehler, who was the best thing about last year’s Baby Mama. Amy Poehler, who was one of the best things about SNL for the past few years. Amy Poehler, who was one of the three things in Southland Tales that was actually great and entertaining instead of desperately bad and misery-inducing (the other two things being The Rock and Wood Harris, with whom she shared her scenes). She makes me laugh pretty much every time I see her, but not here. In that case, I’m willing to assume she was just dealt a bad hand, and given a character who is unworkable. The only times Leslie Knope comes alive and becomes more than a badly formed lump of unrealistic character flaws is when she pines over Mark Brendanawicz, her selfish and unappealing colleague played by the talented Paul Schneider. Again, another talented actor playing an unlikeable and uninteresting character. Maybe I should rethink this category. Is it the cast, or the show, that I don’t like?

Well, Aziz Ansari is in it. I’ll admit, I have not seen much of his work. He was in Funny People for a couple of minutes, and the effect he had on me was akin to having my soul Maced. Perhaps I’m wrong. This show seems to be underwritten and poorly thought through, which could account for it, but his turn as Tom Haverford is almost unwatchable. I’d say that’s more than just a glitch in the writing. The same goes for Nick Offerman as the Dwight-Schrute-esque Ron Swanson, a character that screams desperation from the writers but is not at all helped by Offerman’s flat performance. Both Haverford and Swanson seem like the kernel of a joke expanded to character-size without much thought given to whether these characters will work. As it is, they’re just belligerent. The less said about Aubrey Plaza and her pointless teenage character April Ludgate, the better. (See above for comments about affectless, oblivious characters like Ludgate and Casey from Party Down.)

Perhaps the thing I resent most is putting someone as funny as Chris Pratt opposite a comedy void like Rashida Jones. She was charming enough in The Office but wasn’t expected to be particularly funny. Here she is either a dope being manipulated by Pratt’s Andy, or she berates him, making her seem churlish and him seem like a victim, which he isn’t. Crappy couples on TV are not often fun to watch (ask any Lost fan who despairs whenever Jack and Kate get together). I’m more than willing to accept that a lot of these actors are far better in other roles. Hell, I’ve seen them be better. Pratt was hilarious in The O.C. as Che, and Paul Schneider was riveting in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Perhaps I’m being way too harsh on these actors. Sadly, the bottom line is that, unlike The Office that came with only a couple of good characters, already based on archetypes from the UK series, and then built the supporting cast as they went along, Parks and Recreation started from scratch and got none of the characters right. Even a good cast would have trouble making this bunch of half-formed comedic scribbles come to life. In time, if it doesn’t get cancelled, perhaps this will change. Let me know when it does. Until then, I’ll stick with Community, Dan Harmon’s brilliant new sitcom, which recently started almost fully-formed and will hopefully keep getting better.

Best Guest Star of the Year: Jon Hamm - 30 Rock

For a little while, we were non-converts to the Cult of Hamm. He entertained us enough in Mad Men, but we had enough reservations about the first season that he didn’t really register in our consciousness, even after the Dick Whitman revelation gave Hamm the best acting opportunities. Perhaps we thought he was just a pretty face, and couldn’t imagine there was anything else in there. Canyon was also offended by his Brylcreemed hair. She deemed it unappealing. I wasn’t about to argue.

Then came the far superior second season, and sightings of his normal hair (adorably floppy), and then a turn on Saturday Night Live that was so confident and charming that I fully expect Hamm to eventually challenge the hosting records fought over by Christopher Walken, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. Dramatic excellence, perfect comic timing, a willingness to play off his image, and seriously, one of the handsomest faces on Earth; if he can sing and dance, he’s got it all. We are now members of the Cult. Wearing robes and everything. It’s proper infatuation.

His three episode run as Dr. Drew Baird on 30 Rock was joyous. It was so good that the plot of his final episode, with him coming to realise that having everyone fawn over him all the time is something that doesn’t happen to anyone else, was even alluded to in the third season of Mad Men (reacting with bemusement when Sal points out that he doesn’t get hit on by flight attendants on every flight he takes, unlike Don, who is obviously spoilt for choice). Once Mad Men is over, Hamm can pretty much pick a direction. Not many actors get to achieve stardom and show both comedic and dramatic chops. Maybe he’s more like Dr. Drew than he realises.

Most Resurrected Character of the Year: Captain Jack Harkness - Torchwood: Children of Earth

I thought I always wanted Captain Jack’s immortality to be used more, as it’s a nifty little gimmick. I don’t think that any more.

Most Surprising Directorial Work of the Year: Akiva Goldsman on Kings and Fringe

Akiva Goldsman has done some awful things. His script for Batman and Robin is rightly reviled. He’s great at simplifying complex narratives and turning them into multiplex fodder (A Beautiful Mind, I, Robot). He’s the go-to guy for big movies based on crappy thrillers by bad writers (he’s adapted John Grisham and Dan Brown). When nerds hear his name, they sob with misery. “Why is this man so beloved of Hollywood?”, they shout. “It must be proof of its awfulness, along with the career of Michael Bay!” Of course, my own feelings about Bay are not so straight-down-the-line, and now, Goldsman has begun to win me over.

All he had to do was build up his experience as a director by making two of the strongest hours of TV of the 2008-2009 season. His debut, on Kings‘ The Sabbath Queen, showed a talent for atmospherics and interesting visuals, pacing the episode beautifully and getting some good performances from even the weaker actors on the show. After that he wrote and directed Bad Dreams, one of the highlights of Fringe’s first season. Again, the creepy atmosphere was beautifully judged, and the opening few minutes were hypnotically staged. Even better, the big finale was disturbing and tense, even as it played with some less than fresh ideas, and then we got a video clip of a young Olivia that wouldn’t have looked amiss in Hideo Nakata’s Ringu. If you’ll forgive me for cheating and ignoring my own rules, we’ve also seen his work on the first episode of the second season of Fringe, and again, it was very impressive. In time it’s obvious that he will be directing films too. I hope he finds some interesting material to work with, but even if not, I look forward to seeing what he will come up with.

Least Surprising Directorial Work of the Year: Greg Yaitanes on House and Lost

Shades of Caruso took against the TV (and occasional film) director Greg Yaitanes after some hilariously overwrought and showy work on shows such as Heroes and Drive, and we’ve yet to be convinced he deserves reappraisal. Last year he won an Emmy for his work on the first part of the House season finale, which would have been understandable when you take the logistics of the shoot into account, but is frustrating when Katie Jacobs’ work on the far more affecting final episode wasn’t even considered (and she’s listed as co-director of the Yaitanes episode too, but didn’t get a nomination). Since then, Yaitanes has been given a co-producer credit on House, and contributed numerous episodes to this season, including the shocking Simple Explanation, in which Kutner (Kal Penn) commits suicide offscreen.

I will say this: the scene where Foreman and Thirteen discover the body was brilliantly done. Unfortunately, Yaitanes had a vision for this episode and went ahead with it. Everyone at Princeton Plainsboro is obviously very depressed about Kutner’s death, so Yaitanes lights the entire episode as if all the colour has been drained from the hospital. It’s an entirely grey hour of TV, just in case you didn’t get it from the performances or dialogue or sad music all over the place. To be honest, the episode Joy, directed by an unexpectedly off-colour Deran Serafian, featured the worst direction of the season, but Yaitanes was consistently bad here, and worse elsewhere.

You see, he also managed to infect my beloved Lost with his ridiculous film-cooties. I could talk about the flashy work he did on Heroes, but to be honest he’s the least of that show’s problems, so I don’t really mind if he stays on it. Lost, however, is a totally different matter. He had worked on the show before, in the first season, and as we started rewatching the show recently, I noticed he was kinda bad then too. That was when the show was in its infancy, and was still trying to find its tone, so his attention-seeking excesses were less obvious. By now, we all know what works and what doesn’t work within the very specific Lost world, which made Yaitanes’ excesses even more noticeable than usual. We know that Ben is creepy and Sayid is scary and intimidating, which are characteristics stressed by their very specific line-readings. In He’s Our You, we see a flashback to a face-off between the two characters, and both Michael Emerson and Naveen Andrews draw out their sentences to absurd lengths, with poorly edited pauses between each shot emphasising that they are both very methodical people who hate each other.

Lost usually treats these big moments with a sense of grandeur that works well, considering the unapologetically grandiose nature of the narrative, but this scene stepped over the line between epic and ridiculous. It made my favourite show seem like a parody of itself. I don’t even want to get into the awful “interrogation” scene later (included above), which was poorly written but even more poorly directed. What was Andrews doing here? It’s all over the place. The final scene with Sayid shooting young Ben was brilliant, but it was the only bright spot in a very disappointing hour of Lost. When you compare this horrible misinterpretation of the tone of the show to the consistently impressive work of star directors Jack Bender and Stephen Williams, it just looks amateurish. I keep hoping he’ll settle down, but the latest episode of House was directed by him, and as it was about a games programmer, most shots seemed to feature arms coming out of the side of the frame towards the person being observed, just like an FPS, so it might be a while before he realises less is more.

Best Shout-Out of the Year: House

Stephen Colbert is a huge fan of House, and it seems the feeling is mutual. (It’s the photo above his shoulder, obviously.)

This is the only way Colbert is ever going to get on a Fox channel without being mischaracterised as a baby-eating Trotsky clone.

Intensity of the Year: Lance “Intensity” Reddick – Fringe

While Parks and Recreation fans, or Dexterites, or people with Unusual taste, might be mad at me for being a big meanie and saying such terrible things about their favourite shows, surely there can be no controversy here. No one else this year was so stern and scary and just fucking in charge.

I suspect Lance “Intensity” Reddick can atomise titanium just by looking at it. As with Harry Lennix on Dollhouse, Reddick is pretty under-used on Fringe. Most of the time he is onscreen he’s taking the Fringe team to various crime scenes, or giving Olivia either a bollocking or a pep talk. This is not a good use of this man’s talents. He also showed up in Lost, as the sinister Matthew Abaddon, where he stopped being sinister just before getting shot and killed. Which sucked. I hope season two of Fringe sees him doing more entertaining stuff. I’d like him to shoot one of their ridiculous monsters (a part squid, part mushroom teenager hiding under carpets, for instance), or have more screen time with Blair Brown and Her Metallic Arm. If the Fringe showrunners don’t hurry up, he could well get very bored very soon. In this AV Club interview,  he says he wants to try his hand at comedy. (For the record, though he is seemingly never required to show it on TV, Mr. Reddick is fully capable of expressing amusement, and isn’t just a scarily intense man.)

If he left Fringe to do that, you know I’d be checking it out.

And that’s it for this year. In the next few weeks, some new polls or something. Maybe some chatter about the London Film Festival (I got really carried away buying tickets the other week). Stay tuned, new readers. As you can see, I may not post as often as I would like, but when I do, I tend to post big.

From the Earth to the Moon (1998)

Through dramatization, this series relates the story of the conquest of the moon by the Americans, from the Mercury and Gemini projects to the legendary Apollo missions.

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Omega Speedmaster

Seen in the credits of this HBO mini-series is the Omega Speedmaster

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Journeyman (2007)

It actually takes a serious look at how being tossed around in time would effect a person’s life and relationships taking an almost realistic view of marriage. The real center of this show isn’t time travel, but relationships.

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Omega Seamaster Chronograph

Dan Vassar (Kevin McKidd) wears an Omega Seamaster Chronograph (Model 2594.52)

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Simply Ming (2003-)

An intelligent, talented and well-educated chef presents dishes connected to Chinese cooking.

Breitling ChronoAvenger

Cheff Ming Tsai wears a Breitling ChronoAvenger.

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Noble House (1988)

The story is based on Struan & Co. Jardine-Matheson and the events of Noble House actually took place over a period of seven years in the 1960s. Though Jardines has transferred its headquarters to Bermuda and sold its shipping interests in 1984, it is still a major presence in Hong Kong.

Cartier Pasha

Ian Dunross (Pierce Brosnan) wears a Cartier Pasha 38mm in Noble House.

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Viva La Bam (2003-2006)

A show that follows Bam Margera (of Jackass and CKY fame) in his attempts to anger his parents. Unlike CKY or Jackass, Viva La Bam focuses mainly on the torture of Bam’s parents and less on harmful stunts.

Breitling Chrono Super Ocean

Ryan Dunn wears a Breitling Chrono Super Ocean

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For nine months now Corey Haines has been travelling around the Eastern US as a journeyman programmer. During that time he has run numerous code retreats, published numerous fantastic interviews with leading developers, and made dozens of blog posts and videos in which he reflects on the things he’s learned from the people he’s paired with. The body of Corey’s travails is already beginning to form an invaluable reference, and all of the insights he has pushed into the public domain add to our collective knowledge about how to develop software carefully (in both senses of the word).

Just as amazing as the project’s knowledge elicitation is the fact that Corey is self-funded. He pair programs for food and lodging, and just by doing that he has given back an enormous amount to the community. Well, now he’s skint. The journey will continue only if Corey can raise some funds.

So please visit Corey’s blog and pledge a few quid to keep the journeyman on the road. I did, and it didn’t hurt a bit.

And next year, Corey, how about we raise the cash to get you over to the UK for a tour?

Skechers Men’s Journeyman Safari Sandal Review

These shoes are great. They fit well, they’re adjustable and they can take daily rough wear and still last over a year. My husband is on his second pair.

Skechers Men’s Journeyman Safari Sandal Feature

• Cushioned insole

Skechers Men’s Journeyman Safari Sandal Overview

The Journeyman is a sport sandal perfect for the beach or pool that features a trubuck/mesh upper, ventilated openings, and a rubber outsole.

Skechers Men’s Journeyman Safari Sandal Specifications

Skechers Sport will make your adventures even more interesting with the stylish Journeyman-Safaris sandal. This handsome sandal has a nubuck, canvas, and mesh upper with contrast stitching, bungee ghillie style lace up closure, and a round rubber capped toe. It also features a breathable fabric lining, a faux suede-lined cushioned footbed, and a multi-directional rubber tread on the outsole for premium footing on multiple surfaces.

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 30, 2009 22:30:30

Are they nuts?  Everyone at ABC should be fired and new blood brought in with fresh new ideas.  We already had this show, it was over at NBC and it was called “Journeyman.”  This isn’t going to work and no one is going to watch it, not even the fans of the book because they already have the movie version, which I thought was good enough.

  If you want to find all the details about this ridiculous news click here.

Idiots.  Bring back Pushing Daisies!

So, like I said the other day, I’ve read The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, and it’s really good.

The movie, however, maybe not so much.

But now there’s going to be an attempt at a television show version of the novel. The attempts to bring the story to the small screen started before Brad Pitt’s Plan B production company tried to bring it to the big screen, and presumably it’ll keep the same basic premise: A man with a genetic disorder that causes him to involuntary move through time and space and his romance with the woman who loves him.

This is a relatively new thing, the turning of novels into television shows, right? I mean, True Blood and Dexter and even shit like Roswell make a kind of sense since they’re not just a single novel, though a series of continued novels, and Veronica Mars doesn’t count because it was an adapting idea in continuous morphing form from it’s original young adult novelized version (featuring a male lead character). But like Flashforward? I mean, I get that it’s easily cashable as an attempt to synthesize what people think is so successful about a show like Lost, but does anyone really expect it to last longer than one season?

Not impressed by the filmic version of The Time Traveler’s Wife, I eagerly look forward to an attempt to do good on the story/characters via television, and succeeding where a show like Journeyman did not.

In other television news:

James Marsters of Buffy/Angel/Smallville/Torchwood fame is going to be featured in Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica spinoff prequel, which also will now feature Patton Oswalt amongst it’s cast.

Robert Kirkman’s zombie comic The Walking Dead is the getting a television adaptation, but for AMC, and with Frank Darabont involved somehow (nice to see him pulling his face out of Stephen King’s lap for a while), joining the ranks of Mad Men and Breaking Bad, showing that AMC has an interesting taste for original programming. More so than FX, at least. The Walking Dead is quality work, and probably the most realistic take on the zombie thing. I just hope they lose the folksy atmosphere, but other than that: it’s something that has good elements that can translate straight from page to screen and plenty of things that could be improved via television writing.

Right now: You can watch my favorite episode of Joss Whedon’s Firefly, “Objects In Space.”

Experience The Venture Bros. panel at this past Comic-con.

Everyone was joking around the release of G.I. Joe that Mr. Eko would want to be one of the returning cast members to Lost this coming season, and then the actor who played Mr. Eko, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, confirmed that he would indeed like to make such a return (which makes a kind of sense since they’re even bringing fucking Charlie back). Now, it’s looking like he may get his wish since they’re rebuilding his church. Or maybe not.

Chacos are the official footwear of the Farm.

Coffee is the official beverage of the Farm.

Andrew Peterson is the official iPod music on the Farm.

G, C, and D are the official chords of the Farm.

At least a goatee is the official facial hair of the Farm.

Humid is the official weather of the Farm.

Mac is THE official computer of the Farm.

Watching episodes of the Office on the mac is the official TV of the Farm.

Dorms 2 and 37 are the official singles mixers of the Farm.

Nametags are the official neck-wear of the Farm.

“No inappropriate touching” is the official greeting on the Farm.

Ultimate is the official sport of the Farm.

Trying to find “the room” is the unofficial nighttime recreation of the Farm.

An untucked polo and jeans is the official “business casual” of the Farm.

Union University is the official source of Journeymen for the Farm.

Auburn University is officially the coolest school represented on the Farm. (Thanks to Matthew and Cristi and Brian).

ESV-mini is the official Bible of the Farm.

iPod touch with Skype is the official iPhone of the Farm.

Skype is officially the quickest way to get in touch with your parents from the Farm.

For those reading who are currently at the Farm, you will understand more of these than the others, and please make additions as you see fit.

I’m still disappointed NBC canceled Journeyman and yet continued to run Heroes into the ground. I got hooked on Heroes season 1 halfway through, back when NBC had 5 episodes on their website at a time, making it impossible to catch up on the show legally — thankfully the corporate fat cats have wisened up a bit since then. Season 2 came out and as hard as I tried to like it, I couldn’t. Yet I watched the entire season, hoping that the writers had some amazing twist yet to come (hardly; they were far too busy striking for more $), and each episode I was discouraged. It seems most were so sickened that they immediately changed the channel upon the conclusion of each episode. I however got hooked on Journeyman, and it restored my faith somewhat. Maybe there were some competent writers remaining where striking not only made sense, but for their caliber was practically mandated.

But alas, numbers mean more to corporate fat cats than they ever will to a mathematician, and Journeyman did not have the rankings necessary to survive in a world built on statistics (I’ve already been asked where my blog hit counter is — as of yet I haven’t decided if I want to add it). It’s a shame, because in my opinion it really is a fantastic show, in the same category and maybe even the same level as Firefly (I can already here the Joss Whedon fans hissing at the mere consideration of such a heretical suggestion).

This all came about because of a preview for The Time Traveler’s Wife, which reminded me of the show. I am proud to say I now have my wife hooked. In fact, we are about to watch episode 7 on Hulu, so I bid you goodnight.

I’m in Hong Kong at this very moment. Stopping over for my Dubai-bound trip. I wanted to ask a Pana flightmate, “Pwede patabi? Para pag dating sa Dubai sanay na ulit ako sa amoy n’yo?”

No Swami today. Sorry, guys.

Whaaa?

Hey, I said I’m sorry! But I have things to do. One of which is to put up a bunch of audio features on my website so that you can listen to past reports I did for Marketplace.

I’m in the final throes, last legs, dying moments of my radio “career” right now. It won’t last much longer. So I thought it would be nice if fans of the pieces I made for public radio could track down archival material after I’m gone. This is my version of the George W. Bush Library, only in my case I’ve actually done things I can be proud of. 

Having said that, if I were writing a blog post today it would be to celebrate Ben Silverman being ousted at NBC. As the guy who oversaw the unnecessary revivals of American Gladiators and Knight Rider, as well as cancelling one of the best dramas NBC ever had – Journeyman- plus being responsible for truly terrible shows like Parks and Recreation, My Own Worst Enemy, and the upcoming five-nights-a-week Jay Leno Show, a disaster in the making, he was long overdue for being fired. Although in PR terms, he’s not being fired at all, he’s found another job and is going to that, because firing him would suggest that whoever hired him in the first place had made a huge mistake, and that would never do.

Indeed, the guy who really should be fired is the guy who hired him – Jeff Zucker, the big cheese at NBC Universal, who began as a researcher for their Olympic coverage in the 80s and rose steadily through the ranks when maybe, perhaps, for the good of all concerned, he should have stayed a researcher. Zucker, in the mind of many critics, is responsible for NBC being at the bottom of the network pile right now and continuing to languish.

But will they junk him? Oh good grief, absolutely not. Once these people get their feet under the desk, however mediocre they are, their big-time friends protect them like they’re an endangered species. Zucker is going nowhere.

Besides, he’s not alone. TV executives make lousy decisions and waste millions of dollars all the time and are never held accountable. For example, my innovative and fascinating little TV travel show, which had a legion of loyal fans, was cancelled in 2006, to be replaced by a bland, toe-curlingly awkward sports show hosted by Drew Carey. Which sports show? What was the title? Answer: nobody has a clue. It pretty much tanked, leaving Carey to move on to The Price is Right. 

In those circumstances, wouldn’t you have fired the executive who made such a rubbish and ill-conceived move? (That and many more, I might add.) But no, it won’t happen. The bad decisions continue at these places. Or rather, they do, until one day the roster of catastrophes is so great that someone has to be blamed, and publicly. And that’s what’s happened at NBC. 

That’s why Silverman is out finally. For the record, here he is, praising Leno and saying how great the atrocious Parks and Recreation is going to be.

And here he is in a hotel room singing a made-up song very, very badly.

On that ground alone, I’d have fired his ass. They say he’s being replaced with a worthy substitute. Hopefully, it’s someone with vision and artistic credentials, someone who’s created great shows, understands writers, is bold and daring and willing to consider bright new innovative ideas….let me see now….

His name, apparently, is Jeff Gaspin.

Hang on, let’s take look a look at his background….oh, what a surprise – he’s an accountant!

So another four years of doldrums for NBC, then. Will these people never learn?

TV Swami – he say NO to NBC pretty much for the foreseeable future.

www.cashpeters.com

Buy Cash’s book, Naked in Dangerous Places, HERE.

We had a blast exploring White Island, Camiguin. It is literally a white island without any trees nor large boulders. It’s just sand and sea in the shape of a large ‘C’.

We took the best pictures from Camiguin there.

We walked the shores and lied on the sand.

While Boo and I were lying on the sand, Ronald and Jona walked on to the edge of the water. My Boo and I were saying sweet nothings when we heard Ronald scream, “JONA MARIE!”
We looked up and saw that he was in the water while Jona was lying on the sand.
Ronald further screamed, “SUMAMA KA NA SA MUNDO NAMIN! MAHAL NA MAHAL KITA!” he was mimicking some cheesy movie where a merman fell in love with an earth-woman.

Boo and I laughed and screamed, “Bagay!”