Friday Night Lights is all I have left. Let me explain myself, I’m out of new television. Officially in a drought. I’m supportive of the writers’ strike, but damnit, I write about TV, I need TV to do that. Anyway, tonight’s episode, Humble Pie, proved yet again that the major flaw of season two is the inability to have plots flow and feel original, things FNL used to make look easy.

Let’s start with Smash’s racism arc. My attitude towards Smash is often indifferent, especially during most of this season when the writers reverted any growth he may have had during Waverly’s sickness, to him simply being ‘The Smash” again. Now it’s obvious the writers are trying to mature him, make the character realize that there are more important things in life than football, but unfortunately it’s continuing to feel like a retread of last year’s race storyline with Mac McGill, except this one’s a lot less subtle. Gaius Charles is no doubt effective, especially in the scene where Smash consoled his younger sister after the prank call and the final scene where Smash realized just how screwed he was, as is Liz Mikel as Mama Smash (often the highlight of any episode in which she appears), but as often is the case with this season of Friday Night Lights, the actors are once again saving otherwise weak story lines. Even with Smash’s future up in the air, I’m having difficulty caring about this plot.

Another plot I’m having difficulty with? Tim and the Meth Man. Tim went from being the show’s figurative punching bag, to the literal one. Of course he didn’t get away with stealing Meth Man’s money, but having Lyla provide the money seemed like a cheap way out. I doubt Meth Man’s gone for good (especially after Billy opened his mouth) however I wouldn’t complain for a moment if he was. The last thing this show needs is another murder.

And then there’s the epic love story of Lyla and Tim. Tim loves her, she doesn’t love him, I don’t care. It was great to see Lyla set him strait that they would never happen again, as they only made sense during Jason’s hospitalization. Without that dramatic event to bond them, we get no sense of why these characters should be together and Tim’s speech that he knows her so well fell short with me, does he really know her at all? Of course part of Lyla’s rejection is because of Chris, but there’s just something about him that rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s the smile and his seemingly perfect response to everything she throws his way? I’m hoping there’s something more to his character.

After two weeks off screen, Tyra returned with not one, but two story lines. After her refusal to give Landry a shot, it seems like the two parted ways a bit, with Tyra returning when she needed math help. Typical Tyra. It was nice to see something new get thrown her way, in the form of Jean. Her ridiculous jealously over the new girl provided some much needed comedic relief, especially since Landry was enjoying it so much. Also awesome? Matt and Tim’s reaction to Jean’s mixed tape. The quiet smiles and gentle ribbing as Landry finally became the recipient of some courting, rather than the dumbling fool, were great to see.

Not as great as Tami’s look when Tyra easily put the chips on top of the fridge though. It felt like the first time in ages I’ve actually laughed out loud (not in disbelief) at FNL. Unfortunately the volleyball storyline felt like a tired retread of last year’s Powderpuff game, with some bad volleyball scenes. Seriously, I know the show is on a budget, but they couldn’t have hired Adrianne Palicki a coach or something? The writers haven’t forgotten that Tyra owes Tami for last year(this is the second time Tami’s cashed in on it this year, the first being Pantherama), but they’ve given us no scenes to show that that relationship has continued. It seems like this plot would give the perfect excuse for Tyra to get some much needed Mrs. T therapy, however, with Julie’s snide remark that Tami was “one for seven,” it’s obvious that the real reason for the renewed Tyra/Tami interaction was to facilitate yet another fight between Julie and her mother. Julie’s had one note all year, and it’s beyond annoying thirteen episodes in.

Now, Buddy’s the exact opposite. Brad Leland continues to win every scene he’s in, this time as he gave Jason a job and the confidence he needed to make the sale. The look on Buddy’s face when Jason told him that he closed the deal with the looky lu? Too great to describe. As nice as it was to see Jason again, it’s obvious the writers don’t have a clue what to do with him He’s outgrown Dillon, no doubt, but he’s still there. However, catching a glimpse into Jason and Herc’s hilarious domestic squabbles and guy love? Enough to make me forget that the character serves no purpose as of late.

Humble Pie was a step up from last week, but it feels like FNL is stuck. With only two episodes remaining in season two (and perhaps the entire series), they don’t have very long to get out of it.

*Photo courtesy of NBC.

Popularity: 72% [?]

Once again the promo monkeys at NBC ruined pretty much every major twist in this episode. Thanks guys. There was no doubt that Bryce would turn out to be a good guy, after all, we saw the lengths he went to protect Chuck in Chuck vs. the Alma Mater. However, Bryce is still capable of breaking Chuck’s heart, without even realizing it. For a guy who considers Chuck his only friend, Bryce is pretty self involved not to notice that he’s once again wedged himself in between Chuck and the girl of his dreams. As for last week’s kiss between Chuck and Sarah, it went completely ignored on Sarah’s end, although it was obvious she felt bad when Chuck was asking her to Thanksgiving dinner. I have to say though, making out with Bryce in Chuck’s bedroom? That’s cold. At least she realized pretty quickly that Chuck saw them and was retaliating in the only way he knew how, by sending Casey after Bryce.

It was a good thing that Bryce went off on his one man mission, as it left the potential for his return, and no doubt he’ll wreak havoc during a future sweeps episode. Plus, despite all the answers we got about his sending Chuck the intercept and going rogue, there’s still one giant question mark out there, his involvement with Jill. Here’s hoping the next time we see Matthew Bomer as Bryce, it’ll simply be in flashback form, shedding some light on Chuck: The Stanford Years. Having Bryce there also completely threw off the dynamic between Casey/Sarah/Chuck, and just for that, I’m glad he’s gone.

As for Casey, I’m ashamed of myself for not realizing before tonight the potential that he could have with Awesome. Seriously, these two are prime candidates for love unabashed guy love. Am I the only one who’s waiting for the episode where Awesome and Casey have to compete in some display of athletic ability? It’d be gold just for the smack talk Casey would end up dealing Awesome. But knowing Awesome, he’d be completely oblivious to all of Casey’s snark. I also loved that Casey knew how to suit up for the occasion, and even more so, that he embraced the Cosmo’s.
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Popularity: 75% [?]

After last week’s pilot aired, bloggers and critics alike turned on Californication. Will they be any nicer after tonight’s inaugural episode? I doubt it. Even I didn’t warm to this one. And I loved the pilot. Californication’s main weakness is that it’s brash just to be brash. Any chance it has to get a woman naked, it takes. And after this glorious episode I now have the image of Hank having sex with a scientologist, followed by mutual vomiting. Thanks for that Californication!

It’s not all bad. There’s one guaranteed way to make me not hate a show, hire Lucy Davis. It doesn’t fail, she’s just that awesome. So congrats to the folks at Californication for realizing that she rocks and giving her a scene to be deliciously douchy as Hank’s potential editor at Hell-A. Unfortunately Californication needs more help than Lucy Davis can offer.

The allure that I saw in the pilot is long gone. There is absolutely no reason to feel empathetic towards Hank. The fact that he stands in front of a mirror and calls himself a douche doesn’t make me feel for him. Sure, he hates himself, but he never does anything to dig himself out of the whole that’s become his life. Instead he just keeps digging deeper and deeper. Californication relies too much on Duchovny. He’s a great actor, but he can’t carry the show entirely on his own. The other characters need some depth, some back story. While we learned the circumstances in which Karen cheated on Hank, we really don’t know why. The most negative thing that I can say is that I really don’t care why. I don’t care about these characters or their circumstances.Hopefully the next few episodes will get me, otherwise I may have to bail. Especially next month when the fall season kicks into gear.Until next week, I leave you with this: Vaginal rejuvenation.

Popularity: 91% [?]

Two things that I love are watching television and screwing with my friends. So when an opportunity presents itself to do both, well, that’s a good day. The folks at FX in the UK have created a nifty viral marketing tool for Dexter, where you type in some basic information and your friend’s email and suddenly they’re getting a video death wish from Dexter. I took it upon myself to send said video to my friend John, a few hours later he replied simply with the following:

RE: This is really weird.

You’re fucked Diana…FUCKED.

Mission accomplished? I think so. To freak your friends out, head over to Icetruck.tv.

Popularity: 20% [?]

The Botwin’s are back and oh are they screwed. Last time we saw Nancy Botwin she was being held at gunpoint by rival gangs and her drugs had been stolen by her son. Oh, her husband was also murdered by said gangs, and her other son was kidnapped by a woman on the run from an Eskimo, named Abumchuck. The crew at Weeds really knows how to write em.

At the end of the premiere episode Nancy surprisingly finds herself even more screwed than she was in the finale. Why you ask? Well, Celia found the drugs in the trunk of Silas’ car. Uh oh. And Celia being the moral authority that she is, put all the drugs into the pool, therefore pretty much guaranteeing Nancy’s head on a platter to U-Turn. Don’t you just love Celia? Seriously, the woman is gold!

I’ve found over the course of two seasons that I could not care less about Silas. I understand how he has to be there to illuminate Nancy’s home-life, but I feel like Andy and Shane do that more effectively. At least they provide comic relief. Because of that, I don’t care what happens to Silas, especially since he’s such a one dimensional character. I’m really dreading the moment when the Olsen twin shows up as his love interest this season. At least deaf Megan knew how to use a can of spray paint.

Popularity: 34% [?]

When I first saw The Nine, I was worried about one thing, how would the show make it work in subsequent seasons, since the premise revolved around one event so heavily? Never did I think that the show wouldn’t make it past its first season, in fact, quite the opposite. I was convinced that it was in it for the long haul, after all, it was the best pilot I had seen in years. Not even the pilot of Lost had me as excited and exhilarated as the pilot of The Nine. I watched it three times before it premiered on ABC. I wasn’t the only one that loved it, the critics agreed, it was going to be a surefire hit.

Of course in hindsight we now know how wrong we were, The Nine made it 7 episodes before ABC took it off the air. And we all thought that that was that, until recently when ABC announced that it was going to run off the remaining episodes of the show, back on Wednesdays, the night where it crashed and burned.

It’s been a long time since I watched an episode of The Nine, but the latest episode did nothing but reaffirm my love for the show. It was almost entirely about what happened in the bank, particularly to Jeremy and what caused him to run away from Lizzie. It was a near flawless episode. My only complaint is that Kim Raver’s hair is so damn distracting, seriously, long and straight is not a good look for her.

I’m watching the show now with a different perspective, a perspective knowing that the end is near, and that it will come without any resolution. We’ll never truly know what happened inside the bank, what changed everyone so much, but does that really matter? With a show as good as The Nine, fans should cherish the remaining episodes, as they’re probably going to be some of the best television of 2007. Sure, we’ll never get the answers we’re dying to know, but at least we’ll get more time with the characters we grew to love and the mystery that we embraced.

Tune in tonight at 10/9c on ABC to see one of the few remaining episodes.

Popularity: 26% [?]

I need to apologize for what I’m about to do, I feel guilty about it, so guilty. Ladies and gentlemen, I just watched the trailer for The Return of Jezebel James and it looked awful. Everything about it looked bad. The worst part(aside from the laugh track)? The dialogue didn’t work. Palladino’s dialogue didn’t work. I just…I’m speechless…

I feel dirty. In one short paragraph I just bashed Parker Posey, Lauren Ambrose and of course, Amy Sherman Palladino. I never thought this day would come. But if FOX can’t make the show look good for two minutes, there is a serious problem. Judge for yourself with the trailer below:

Popularity: 17% [?]

I’ve spent the past year on a break from channel surfing. An unfortunate casualty of this has been TLC, particularly, What Not to Wear. Today I found myself sitting in front of the television for two episodes and it re-ignited a love, or should I say obsession with the show. If today had been a What Not to Wear marathon, I’d still be in front of my television. I couldn’t help but think about the reasons why I love What Not to Wear, and then it was only natural to put them in list form:

It’s kind of cruel:
Sure, we always see the people jumping up and down happily because they’ve now got 5000 bucks and two personal stylists. But think about it, their friends and family are essentially saying, ‘you’re too ugly to hang with us. Fix it or you’re banned.’ But the show makes it all cutesy, rarely do you see the person who just goes batshit because their friends and family won’t accept them as the ugly person they are.

The Streak:
There’s something both mysterious and intriguing about Stacey’s white hair streak. It’s not the fact that she has one, it’s that she has the skills to rock it so hard. It makes her stand out, obviously the point, but it also makes her look like kind of a bad ass. Sure Stacey’s nice to people every week, but she’s definitely not
someone I’d want to cut in line in front of at a Monolo sample sale. You know she’d cut you.

Carmody’s So Damn Nice:
Seriously, she just is. If I had a billion bucks she’d be my personal make up artist. She’s never mean, even if she’s got a face uglier than an Extreme Makeover candidate to work with. Sometimes, I wonder how she pulls it off. I’m convinced she’s a magician first, and an artist second.

It’s heartfelt:
I don’t care who you are, if you’re not a little misty eyed by the end of each episode, you’re a monster. You are. Black black heart.

I have to go, I just discovered the What Not to Wear podcasts. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Maybe I’ve been conditioned to expect a cliffhanger at the end of a season finale, maybe I’m just used to actually enjoying season finales recently. That’s why I don’t feel fulfilled by the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy. That’s not to say that things didn’t happen, they did. Christina and Burke broke up, as did Meredith and Derek, George failed his intern exam and is no longer a surgeon, Alex(with coaching from Addison) realized that he loved Ava, Callie ripped Izzy’s heart out by letting her in on her plans to have kids with George, Adelle lost her baby, oh and Callie won Chief Resident destroying poor Bailey. So yeah, LOTS of things happened but they just didn’t have the emotional punch they should have.What’s really annoying is that Grey’s seems to have gotten in the habit of setting up a plot-line and then taking the easy way out. They set up the fight for the Chief resident and then Derek just says no when the Chief offers him the job. They set up Meredith and Derek to be an epic couple, then have Derek act like an act for the better part of the season and then they try to make him the good guy in the end? He told Meredith he was all in, yet he also said flirting with the ‘other woman.’ On paper I should be sympathizing with Derek but instead I pretty much detest his character. I have no sympathy for him or his emotional issues. Sure he can gaze and look all dreamy but is he really? I think not.

Of course there’s one big shocker, the identity of that other woman Derek flirted with. The same girl just happens to walk into intern change-room and introduces herself to George as….wait for it…..Lexie GREY. Yeah, they went there. Derek was flirting with Meredith’s little sister. HER LITTLE SISTER. Words can’t describe how angry that reveal made me. This pretty much counts as the last straw.

There was once a time when I trusted the writers of Grey’s Anatomy to take me wherever they wanted. Now I consider watching the show a chore. This is why I can confidently say that I won’t be a regular viewer of Grey’s Anatomy next season. That’s not to say I intend to stop watching the show, because I can’t imagine doing that. I’ve watched Grey’s Anatomy since the pilot episode and was promoting it to friends and colleagues when it was just the show after Desperate Housewives, so letting go of it isn’t exactly easy but with a ridiculously crowded Thursday night it’s not as hard as one would think.

Popularity: 21% [?]

The miniature killer is Lizzie Miller? DAMN. Turns out Natalie, played by The Nine(I miss that show!!!) veteran Jessica Collins, was the foster child of Ernie O’Dell, who Gill took down. So the recent killings were to challenge Gill. Oh, Natalie’s insane, like vacant eyes, throw your little sister off the doll house crazy. But I guess a serial killer kind of has to be. While stalking one of the crime scenes she was able to see that Grissom and Sara were more than just coworkers. Don’t you just love it when the serial killer is more perceptive than all of the coworkers? Natalie, being the female Michael Myers that she is, saw the chance to get back at Grissom. The season ended with Gill desperately trying to find out from Natalie where Sara is as Sara’s dying under a car.

Really, that’s it? CSI meticulously planned this miniature killer arc with the end result being a Sara cliffhanger? That seems…..odd. And by odd I mean stupid. Too bad Jorja Fox’s contract negotiations pretty much spoiled this plot weeks ago.

This is the second underwhelming finale of the night. Looks like I’m relying on the NBC comedies to up the ante.

Popularity: 31% [?]