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Hmmm… do random NA sponsors usually get invited into morgues to finger bodies?

Dexter is a fabulous series, but as a cop drama there are always sizable irregularities, like the pictured scene involving Dexter and a woman who he happens to invite into a make-shift morgue filled with body parts from the Bay Harbor Butcher. Call me crazy, and I’ll be the first to say that I am not, nor have I ever been a cop on the Miami police force, but it seems like it would be against procedure to let Jane Average have her way with the evidence. Luckily, this is hardly a cop show despite most of the main characters being cops or working for the MPD, so it seems OK to let things like this slide. Dexter is a show about self discovery, and sometimes the key to figuring things out is to hang out with a crazy artist into body parts. More after the jump…

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Working the program.

The award for most brilliant narrative choice so far on Showtime’s serial killer drama Dexter goes to putting the titular character in a twelve-step program. First of all, it eliminated the one “this is ridiculous, why is it still going on” thread from last season with Doakes following Mr. Morgan to figure out “just what that guy is up to” — despite the ease at which this all seemed to wrap itself up (I ain’t complaining). More after the jump…

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S–t sandwich.

I guess at this point I’m basically watching Weeds as something of a goof. I mean, over the past six or so weeks the show has gone from whimsical to odd to reaching to just plain awful. Now, it is no longer worth tuning in for the characters, but instead just to see where this runaway train ends up. It also isn’t worth devoting any more than two paragraphs toward.

This week, for starters, I have to admit I was a little saddened that they didn’t take the twist I was expecting them to take from the moment Nancy left the doctor’s office. Given the series’ recent track-record of having characters do things for no particular reason I was certain she was going to have an affair with Peter’s ex-wife. Why did I think this would happen? Because at this stage in the game, why the f–k not? When this moment didn’t develop I was a little sore, but quickly found comfort in the geyser of s–t that closed out the episode. How fitting, right? Talk about your metaphors.

For the love of god, get us off of this trainwreck of show.

Man, those Weeds producers love kicking up the indie-rock soundtrack to pretend the story they’re telling is of any consequence whatsoever. Sure it might have worked a season or so back, but that was before all of the characters were reduced to pawns in a series of non-sequitors and cheap thrills. Even the episodes dramatic core (Celia’s physical and emotional reveal of herself to us to and to Sullivan) was ultimately nothing more than shock as Sullivan had already presented himself as such a miserable human being there was no genuine resonance. Wasn’t this the guy who was trying to nail Nancy about ten minutes prior?

As for the Andy storyline… OK? But… why? What’s the point? What does any of this have to do with anything? The only reason to keep watching is for the two kids, Shane and Isabelle, and the occasional funny line by Kevin Nealon. At this point those characters are in their own series that just happens to be airing in the middle of Weeds. Am I the only person who feels this way? Talk about a fall from grace.

I feel last season I was perhaps a tad overly critical of Dexter, Showtime’s surprisingly engrossing serial-killer drama. I got on board late and was forced to catch up over the course of a weekend having read all of this press about how brilliant and edgy the show was. Maybe my expectations were too high, or perhaps I secretly didn’t believe anything of cultural consequence to be shown on Showtime. By the season’s end I was a fan, but still had reservations. The supporting cast was too flat, and the season’s big revelation carried so much emotional weight I doubted they could ever find a story that would be even close to approaching the level of personal intimacy achieved. Going into this new season, I’m extremely optimistic, not the least of which is due to the very awesome Dexter posters plastered all over this city. Much more after the jump…

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Hey, it’s Conrad!

This show is dangerously close to falling off my radar. What was once thought of as simply a string of uneven episodes is now edging close to being more of an epidemic problem for the series as a whole. The decisions they made during the latter half of the second season suggested the writers were interested in sacrificing ease for drama and reality for comedy. This I appreciated. There are too many shows to count that do the opposite. Now, I can’t get through an episode without the characters making the single most obvious decision for every problem that arises — unless of course it’s Nancy inexplicably nailing Matthew Modine’s real-estate kingpin for reasons that are as mysterious as they are unsettling. More after the break…

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“Uncle Jesse! Uncle Jesse!”

You knew it was going to be a crazy week when The Rippers tried to have band practice in the basement while Michelle was home sick from preschool. When she wandered downstairs during a particularly raucous version of The Beach Boys “Cocomo” and said, “Uncle Jesse, you’re making noise!” I almost thought I was going to squirt milk out my nose — because I was watching the episode drinking a tall glass of 2% milk and munching on some graham crackers. Of course, once Stephanie got home from girl scouts things didn’t improve much for The Ripper’s chances on being ready before their big gig. More after the jump…

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I’m sorry, Andy Millman was wrong. Wigs can be funny.

Weeds has gone from being at the top of my “excited to watch” list to somewhere between Oprah and reruns of George Lopez. It’s not that it’s a bad show, it’s just wildly inconsistent… and maybe a little racist (maybe more than a little). If not for the million-faces-of-Mary-Louise Parker it would be a far more difficult sell (and probably placed on the list between one of those creepy penis-enlargement infomercials and that really weird call-in game show where the host talks at the screen for two hours without stopping in the middle of the night). A bit more after the break…

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I really loved in the opening scene (between Nancy and the DEA agent looking for the presumed dead, Peter) that Nancy never really looked the guy in the eyes. She looked everywhere, just not at him. Mary Louise Parker is great at this sort of thing, and is really the main reason I stick with this wildly uneven series. But is that enough? More after the jump…

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Hey, it’s Carrie Fisher!

After last week where I spoke highly of Showtime’s decision to run a lower-third on the screen during the first few seconds of the episode filling us in on who was singing the theme song, they didn’t do it this week! What’s that all about? It wasn’t even being sung in English. Throw me a bone, here Sho.

OK, now that that’s out of the way. What was up with the dancing scene? It seemed right out of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, only without the platform shoes, and y’know, this time with the threat of rape. Kind of a stupid scene, no? Really, it was a scene that highlighted the problems with the series. More often than not, it seems that the solution to all problems is for Nancy to do something vaguely sexy in front of seemingly dangerous people. It’s fun, sure, but it isn’t particularly funny. The series needs Zooey Daschenel back (hell, any series could use Zooey Daschenel back). Perhaps her presence at the end of last season and the beginning of this one raised the comedy stakes to a level the series creator’s weren’t prepared to maintain.

I just want to laugh. Is that too much to ask?

The brightest spot in the episode was Andy finally having to show up for army. It provided more “potential” for comedy than anything, but at this stage of the game, potential goes a long way. Nothing else in the episode was all that memorable. Hopefully this changes in the coming weeks once Matthew Modine and Mary-Kate Olsen show up. Right now though… not so much.
Again, I just want to laugh. I’ll leave the drama to the professionals.

“I ran into a door”

I really appreciate Showtime running a lower-third during the opening song telling us that this week’s version of “Little Boxed” was being performed by Angelique Kidjo. Usually I’m totally opposed to screen clutter (especially on premium cable) but in this case it’s much more of a service since most fans of the show probably wonder who’s doing the theme each week, but probably not interested enough to dig through the closing credits thirty minutes later. Full recap after the break…

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The finale of Weeds second season was so crazy in its desire to have every single character in what appeared to be an inescapable life and death cliffhanger, I found going into tonight’s season premiere I was far more interested in how the writers would get themselves out of this painted-then-nailed into a corner predicament than what the future held for our beloved characters. After all, aside from Peter the DEA agent, no one has really been that badly hurt — well, Andy did get his toes bitten off, but it seemed to be in good fun. To my great relief, 30 minutes into this new season we aren’t even remotely close to solving the problems that plagued our characters in the last. Nor should we. The full details after the break…

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Hello, I’m a completely repellent character!

The best thing that can be said about Showtime’s new “comedy” Californication is that it’s so bad you can’t even fathom tuning in for a second week to see if it rights itself. It’s so bad, I’d sooner listen to that awful Chili Peppers record of the same name. Lucky for me, Mondays aren’t going to be quite as packed with television as I had feared earlier today. For that, Californication, I thank you.

And really, when you’re starting with a title like that, you’re setting the bar pretty low. I’d like to blame the problem on David Duchovny, but he’s really doing as much as he can do with the material. The problems here start at the top. Duchovny’s character Hank Moody (y’know, because he’s depressed) starts as one of the biggest narrative clichés of all time, the blocked, depressed writer, and then finds ways to make us hate him more than we did when the series started (with him getting BJ from a dream-nun). Hank starts out as an ass but rapidly turns into some horrifying combination of Charles Bukowski and all the male cast members of MTV’s The Hills. It’s like the text-book definition of how to turn off an audience. What ever happened to walking us to the edge? The premium cable television viewer is more than capable in watching an anti-hero, but usually we’re eased into it. Californicaiton finds the edge immediately and quickly hurls its viewers over to the rocky waves below.

Still, every show is for someone. If you’re the type of person who loves seeing random, naked women having sex with that asshole Mulder, then Californication is for you. Step right up.

I looked at my DVR to see what was going to be on tonight and almost startled myself into a coma. Tonight is the most jam-packed night of programming since the standard television season ended in May. It is a clear sign of things to come as the fall gets underway and sleeping patterns greatly diminish. In any case, here’s a list what I’m hoping to watch:

• My Boys (TBS, 10pm)
• No Reservations (Travel, 10pm)
• Weeds (Showtime, 10pm)
• Californication (Showtime, 10:30pm)
• The Hills (MTV, 10pm)

What’s that? Scheduling conflicts? I don’t understand. I’m just thankful I bailed on Big Love two months ago or things might have been really hairy.

Four of five of those shows will likely work themselves into the regular weekly rotation (Californication is a toss-up as early word is it sucks). The real question mark is on MTV’s The Hills, a series I watched during its first season and was more or less repulsed by. That being said, when a friend’s Gmail away message today reads “Spencer Sucks” I have to wonder if perhaps I was grading the show a bit too harshly and not savoring its “cattier” qualities — so I’m going to give it another shot.

Just because it’s British doesn’t mean it’s good.

Now that The Sopranos is off the air, dominance in the premium cable business is completely up for grabs. Because of this it seems highly suspect that neither HBO or Showtime had an established hit ready in the queue. Sure, Dexter wrapped its first season only six months ago, but having the second season ready once Tony Soprano took seven seconds of black to the back of the head would have certainly given the network that brought us The Red Shoe Diaries an edge in the competition. Instead, both HBO and Showtime have launched Sunday night dramas that couldn’t be more inaccessible to your casual television fan with pay-cable. One is about a family of surfers who speak in Shakespearian beach lingo and are followed around by Jesus. The other deals with a family hiding out in a suburban distopia where Starbucks and SUVs have been replaced with a pervasive sense of weirdness and the now ubiquitous “hidden pasts”. More after the jump…

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