Novel Eye

Last week I noticed that tonight's television line up is: Life, Lost, Lie to Me, Life on Mars and Law and Order Brought to you by the letter L (or Quaker) evidently. Then I went into my DVR over the weekend and noticed that I had two shows back to back: Trust Me Lie to Me HA HA But seriously, I need to cut out some shows. If I didn't have DVR it wouldn't be so bad--I'd have to choose one to watch and that would be it, but now I can watch double the shows! I've lost Eli Stone and Crusoe, of course, but this is what I'm watching (parenthesis for what I'm taping): Monday-House, 24, Medium (Trust Me) Tuesday-Fringe, Law & Order: SVU Wednesday-Life, L&O (Lost, Lie to Me, Life on Mars) Thursday-Bones, CSI , 11 th Hour And now on Friday we have Dollhouse coming up. My husband is actually being very frugal--House, Medium, L&O: SVU , L&O, Life, Bones, CSI with occasional foray's into Lie to Me, Life on Mars and 11 th Hour. Oh, and ER...

They've brought back Crusoe and stuck it on Saturday nights--a sure way to kill anything. I like Crusoe, but it's always going to be limited by the A-B problem . Crusoe can never get off of the island, no matter what happens. Something must always thwart it at the last minute. Unfortunately that renders it a more literate Gilligan's Island.

Watched the first episode. More on that as I digest it. Don was reading Frank O'Hara. I have a small book of O'Hara poems (not the one in the show) which my poetry teacher encouraged me (made me) read because I do not write like him. I like some of it--and I like it more than I did 15 years ago (how impossible that seems) now. Poem Instant coffee with slightly sour cream in it, and a phone call to the beyond which doesn't seem to be coming any nearer. "Ah daddy, I wanna stay drunk many days" on the poetry of a new friend my life held precariously in the seeing hands of others, their and my impossibilities. Is this love, now that the first love has finally died, where there were no impossibilities? -Frank O'Hara, 1956, Lunch Poems (For Matt, who is NOT writing about coffee and may have thought I had not noticed) 100 days to the election.

Heh , so it turns out that this week was not the last episode of Doctor Who, it was the last episode but one. My big rundown on how Doctor Who both does and doesn't have to follow the A to B scenario will have to wait until next week. Mad Men starts tomorrow, against the end of Foyle's War. Thank God for multiple channel taping.

So, Avatar is ending tonight in a big two hour movie. Avatar is a cartoon on Nickelodeon . It's been running for three years. I'm sad it's ending, but it is inevitable. Ang , the Avatar, is the last air bender in a world where there are benders for the four elements. He already knew air, first season was water, second season was earth and now, tonight, he has to defeat the Fire Lord who has conquered the world. He has to bring balance. Avatar is an American cartoon made by people who (apparently) love Anime . Really, really love Anime . It looks like anime , it breaks with reality into chibi or SuperDeformed like anime , where in the midst of serious battle a character will have the anime sweat or the throbbing vein on his forehead. I can't find any good pictures of this, unfortunately. It's generated a lot of cosplay which should tell you that it's been embraced as anime . I've dragged my husband into being a big fan of the show. It's well written f...

Have you noticed how many British actors are playing Americans in shows? It's really an epidemic. There's most famously Hugh Laurie in House but also Jake Weber in Medium, Linus Roache in Law & Order, Damien Lewis in Life, Jonny Lee Miller in Eli Stone. And those are just the ones I watch and know about because I've tracked all of their pre -America careers. There was also another Trainspotting alum, Kevin McKidd in the short lived Journeyman (I guess famous from Rome which I never saw). Jack Davenport is in that summer filler Swingtown . Rufus Sewell is going to be in an American remake of a British show (that originally starred Patrick Stewart) called Eleventh Hour. Oddly that was one British show I didn't like, despite Patrick. In addition, of course, there's the other British remake of Life on Mars which I liked until the ending--wonder what they'll do about that... Again, I think there are some others that I'm not remembering. Strange to h...

Two of my favorite shows are ending between this week and next. One for good and the other for an extended hiatus. I am rather sad about this. Mad Men begins in a week--which is exciting but there is something inherently tragic about Mad Men which makes one feel as if one is watching too much Eugene O'Neil. So, I would like to take this time to talk about what I watch and why. I watch too much television, I know that. And I realized as I went through things that I can track my life in other people's milestones--the shows I watched, the albums I bought, the clothes that other people designed. I can also track some of my life in shows that I've done, friends that I've had, jobs I've tried--so I'm not so helpless as some. In this year I've watched pretty faithfully the following: Bones House Medium Law & Order (which got good again), L&O: SVU (which sucked a bit), L&O: CI (with two detectives for the price of one) CSI (but NOT CSI : NY or CSI : Mi...

As my kind readers know, I hated The Departed (and not because I ended up on the cutting room floor). This week's Simpsons was called The Debarted and it featured a mole working for Principal Skinner getting close to Bart. It was rip- snortingly funny. The final scene feature Ralph Wiggum (the special child) watching a rat go by. And this was the final line: Ralph Wiggum : The rat symbolizes obviousness! Oh, yes! Yes! Yes! (In your face, Marty Scorsese!)

Last week I sat down at the computer at 11:30 on Saturday night, just for a few minutes (which turned into about 45) and left the TV running in the next room, because I wasn't going to be working long, right... So something comes on the station--and it takes me a bit to figure out what it might be--Bill and Hillary's Halloween Party (old episode, writer's strike and all) but I had realized it must be SNL by the time Barack Obama had made a cameo as himself to say the lines, "Live from NY..." And I'm listening all the while. And nothing was funny! Absolutely nothing. Well, the host was a newscaster who's name absolutely escapes me and he sort of poked fun of himself in a monologue that was ok, but he could have been doing that on the Daily Show or Olbermann and it would have been the same. And the audience wasn't laughing either. Oh, they cheered when Obama came on, but that's not the same as laughing. AND this is without me actually having to ...

In the midst of the Gladiatorial games which are reality television, it is interesting to see some very good dramas appearing. I never managed to watch 6 Feet Under, or The Sopranos, but I am watching the new one on AMC , Mad Men. Set in 1960 in a Madison Avenue ad agency, it really has a filmic quality to it. It starts with the opening credits--an animated sequence capturing both the glitz and the despair--worthy of a Hitchcock or some of the other amazing animated sequences of the 1960's. It's even shot like a film. A power struggle moment is shot so that the main character is framed between the underling and the boss. It's shot slightly below eye level so we're looking up at his face in the V between their bodies. Fantastic! The look is amazing, and nothing has been smoothed over. Everyone smokes, every moment. The bosses drink at lunch, pinch, ogle and proposition the secretaries. The only black faces are in restrooms and driving the cars and doing the lawns....

The Riches--FX. Eddie Izzard, Minnie Driver.

Tonight I did something I'm ashamed of: I watched two episodes of Project Runway. Well, I read while they played on the TV, but I looked up a lot. Bless me, Readers, for I have sinned and I feel unclean. I hate reality television, even something as "positive" as this, someone will get a lot of money and a start in fashion from it and no one has to eat bugs or cheat on their loved ones or set fire to themselves. For every supposedly positive thing that reality television promotes--rooting for a fan, an underdog, rewarding some talent--there is something dark and horrible, because in the end we are all waiting for someone to crash and burn on national tv, and we all know that the most talented (whatever that means) is not going to walk away with the prize (Clay Aiken, anyone?). I got sucked in because of the first challenge which was to make dresses using only material that they had ripped from the dorms where they are staying. I love a good challenge esp. of materials, and...