HEARTLAND fan in Shondaland?

I had a weird deja vu moment last night watching Grey’s Anatomy. One of the plots was about a bunch of people donating kidneys to complete strangers so that their loved ones, with whom they didn’t match as donors, could receive kidneys from the recipients’ loved ones. Got that?

I did. As soon as Bailey started explaining the complicated procedure, I said, “It’s called domino transplants,” minutes before Izzie identified it as such. No, I’m not a doctor. I knew because last year, I guest-starred on a TNT show called Heartland (starring Treat Williams and Kari Matchett) in an episode that dealt with this exact thing. I played one of the donors, Mrs. Chan. Last night, one of the donors was named Mrs. Chen. At one point, my character bailed, putting the whole procedure into jeopardy. Last night, one of the wives backed out, too, until Bailey changed the woman’s mind.

When Chief Webber called this procedure “historic,” I wanted to say, “It was done a year ago by a basic cable show!” I guess there really are only 7 original ideas in Hollywood.

Watch the Season 3 Premiere of 30 ROCK Here! (video)

Can’t wait until 30 Rock comes back for its third season next Thursday, October 30? Thanks to TV Guide, you can watch the entire episode here for free! This was worth the wait. Written by the indomitable Tina Fey, it made me laugh out loud, brings Jack back to New York and Will Arnett as Devon is more out of control than ever.

If you can’t watch the video for some reason, here’s a recap. ***SPOILERS!!***

 

The first scene is of Liz walking confidently down the street, looking and feeling good. A limo with dark windows pulls up alongside and a man calls out, “Hello, Pussycat!” Liz launches into a retort until the window rolls down and she realizes it’s Jack. The look on her face is precious—she’s like a little girl who got just what she wanted for Christmas.

Jack gets out of the limo, they do an awkward, non-hug thing and walk together to 30 Rock. Devon’s in charge of the company now but Jack is determined to get his job back. Not so fast—Devon gives him a position in the mailroom. Jack says he worked his way up through the company before; he’ll do it again and thinks it’ll only take him nine years this time as opposed to twenty-three. By mid-morning, he’s already gotten his first promotion to Head Mailroom Guy.

Meanwhile, Liz is putting on a “better than myself” facade for Bev (guest star Megan Mullally), the adoption agency rep who’s doing an in-home inspection to determine Liz’s viability for single parenthood. The inspection continues into the work place, where Liz’s staff give her not-so-helpful character references. All this dovetails with Liz trying to help Jack decide if he should just go ahead and “debase” himself by “giving his gift” to Kathy Geiss in order to get his job back. It’s for the good of the company, since Devon seems to have completely lost his sanity, planning to quadruple profits by shutting down the company so that demand for lightbulbs would rise.

Lots more antics ensue before Jack gets hired as Kathy’s private business consultant and the ep ends with a sweet moment between Liz and Jack. This mix of sweetness and zaniness is what makes the show the funniest sitcom currently on TV (the other would be Flight of the Conchords, on hiatus until next year).

My favorite lines:

• “That information is classified, at least until Cheney dies, which is going to be a long time from now. That man’s mostly metal.” —Jack’s reply to Liz when asked how he got out of his government job.
• “I got rid of all my Colin Firth movies in case they consider them erotica.” —Liz to Jack about how she prepared her apartment for the adoption-agency rep’s visit. “That man can wear a sweater,” Jack replies.
• “Can I hide this box of penis pasta in your dressing room?” —Liz to Jenna before Bev the rep comes to inspect Liz’s office.
• “She touched me in my swimsuit area.”—Jack to Liz about Kathy Geiss.
• “Have you ever been sexually harassed? Of course not.” —Jack to Liz.
• “Tomorrow, I’ll show up dressed as a Mexican wrestler.” —fellow mailroom guy to Jack after Jack tells him he must dress for the job he wants, not the one he has.
• “It’s just G now, Jack. I sold the E to Samsung. They’re Samesung now.”—Devon explaining to Jack how he’s helped GE’s profit margin.
• “I think adoption’s a wonderful thing. Three of my nine siblings were adopted and one day, I hope to find them.”—Kenneth to Bev.
• “I first met Liz in ’93, when she was fresh out of college and I’d just broken up with O.J. Simpson.”—Jenna to Bev.
• “Me and her go away back like spinal cords and car seats.”—Tracy giving Liz a character reference
• “That’s the lip gloss she put on me so I could be her fancy boy.”—Jack to Liz about the humiliation he must endure with Kathy in order to get his job back.

Rating: Brilliant

See the Real Sarah Palin on SNL here! (video)

The real Sarah Palin paid a visit to SNL last night, but she wasn’t the only famous face. Besides host Josh Brolin, Oliver Stone, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin and the fabulous Tina Fey also showed up. Check out the video below of Palin’s appearance and then vote in my poll. It’s a cool new feature so I gotta try it out!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “See the Real Sarah Palin on SNL here!…“, posted with vodpod

ELI STONE–You Gotta Have Faith in This Show

I watch a lot of mystery/thrillers on TV—24, The Closer, House, Monk, Burn Notice, The Mentalist, to name a few—because I enjoy trying to crack the case before the protagonists do. But even if I succeed, the fun is short-lived since on these types of shows, people are always getting murdered, blown up, cheated on, lied to, etc. After a while, I start feeling pretty cynical about the world and the bad things that happen in it.

That’s why I was pleasantly surprised over the summer to discover Eli Stone on DVD, a show that uplifted, inspired and—least expected of all—moved me. Jonny Lee Miller plays Stone, a shark of a lawyer until he gets a brain aneurysm that gives him visions of the future. At first disturbed and confused by them, Stone eventually embraces his visions, considers himself a kind of prophet and sets out to help people change the course of their lives, sometimes literally saving their lives in the process.

This premise has every chance of making the show one big hunk o’ stinky cheese but amazingly, it’s anything but. Did I mention Stone’s visions are usually set to George Michael songs, with Michael performing in person sometimes? And Stone’s spiritual advisor is a sarcastic, Asian acupuncturist who fakes a heavy accent for other customers but speaks perfect English with Stone and calls him “dude.” There is enough skepticism from other characters (almost all his colleagues) about Stone’s divinatory status to undercut any earnestness Stone might have once he accepts his calling.

But Stone isn’t a sappy guy. He still has some of his former killer-attorney instincts, he just now uses them for good. He struggles constantly to understand his metaphorical visions, which can happen at inopportune times and reveal truths others don’t want to hear.

I didn’t watch this show when it was on last year because I’m not that interested in watching things about faith. Everyone’s version of spirituality is different and I didn’t want to be spoon-fed someone else’s. But this show is fun, with characters bursting into exuberant musical numbers to convey hidden messages to Stone. I hate musicals so I have no idea why I find these interludes so entertaining. Perhaps it’s because they sometimes happen right in the middle of a somber event (a guy would dance beautifully before he drops dead), making me wonder if there isn’t some lightness to be found even in our darkest hours.

I also like how Stone strives to keep his faith and convince his peers he’s not crazy whenever he predicts the future. At times, he’s not certain of his sanity and yet he fights this uphill battle because he believes faith is necessary, that we’d all lead bleak lives if we always demand empirical evidence before believing in something. His arguments on this point have the potential to be schmaltzy yet they’re surprisingly moving. Sometimes his predictions are wrong and people resent him but he keeps trying to do the right thing. It’s this courage of his convictions in a cynical world that makes him more heroic to me than Jack Bauer any day.

So, pick up the first-season DVDs, binge-watch this weekend and you’ll be all caught up for the new episode next Tuesday, guest-starring Katie Holmes. I don’t like her much but this show has surprised me about so many things, I’ll probably love Mrs. Cruise by the time it’s over.

Rating: Good

Reviews of New TV Shows

We’re about a month into the TV season and I’ve had time to sample some of the new shows. Nothing has blown me away so far but there are a couple I found promising and two that disappointed. 

Life on Mars (ABC, Thursdays, 10 p.m.) is the American remake of a BBC show starring Jason O’Mara, Harvey Keitel (in his TV series debut), Michael Imperioli and Gretchen Mol. It’s about NYPD detective Sam Tyler (O’Mara), who gets hit by a car and wakes up in 1973. Did he time-travel or is he really in a coma and all the events we see are only in his subconscious? It’s unclear, as it was in the original British version. Sam continues to solve cases in 1973, some of which might be related to the serial killer he’s tracking back in the present. He’s seriously hampered in his job by the lack of a computer, cell phone and use of DNA science. His colleagues also seem to be renegade types who don’t necessarily play by the rules (Keitel’s character, Lt. Hunt, prepares to rough up a suspect already in custody. “Is that necessary? Tyler asks. “No, it is not,” replies Hunt, as he punches the suspect). The look of the show is gritty and sepia-toned and Imperioli sports a ’70s-porn-mustache from hell. But the fashion and soundtrack are groovy (The Who, Rolling Stones, David Bowie, whose song is the show’s title) and the cast makes it all compelling. This might be a cop show but it looks and feels different than any other currently on the air. Rating: Good

The Mentalist (CBS, Tuesdays, 9 p.m.) is a more conventional police procedural but Simon Baker keeps it interesting. So far the cases are unexceptional but Baker’s laid-back charm as Patrick Jane pulls the show along. Patrick is a man who used to pretend he was a psychic to bilk money from people, but then a serial killer slaughtered his family (the killer didn’t like the fake psychic pretending he could predict the man’s next move) and now Patrick works as a consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation. He says psychic powers don’t exist; he solves cases by being very, very observant. Robin Tunney plays the agent who works with him and unfortunately, her performance is as flat as Baker’s is cool. She’s completely unconvincing as a tough investigator and has no authoritative presence whatsoever. The rest of the agents haven’t been given much to do but Owain Yeoman and Tim Kang are talented actors so hopefully their roles will be beefed up in the future. Rating: Good

CBS debuted another hour-long this season that involves a psychic but has nothing to do with crime-solving. The Ex List stars Elizabeth Reaser as a woman told by a psychic she has to marry within the year to someone she’s already dated or else she will end up alone. So Bella Bloom sets out to locate and re-date her exes (awkward much?). Reaser is very winning as Bella but the scripts so far haven’t supported her. Her friends are underused (Amir Talai is usually very funny, even in commercials, but only as about two lines per episode) and Rachel Boston is annoying, useless, and unbelievable as Bella’s sister (they look nothing alike). I really wanted to like Ex since Reaser is such a talented actress but if the show doesn’t stop being so cutesy and ridiculous (someone puts a toupee on her privates after she over-waxed!), I’ll have to put this on my Nix List. Rating: Okay

Another female-centric show is Kath & Kim (NBC, Thurdays, 8:30 p.m.), starring Molly Shannon and Selma Blair. I don’t have to tell you much about this show because if you watched any of the Olympics, you’ve already seen the clips a thousand times. So what’s a whole episode like? I wouldn’t know because I couldn’t get through it. The jokes were so stale and outdated I thought I‘d traveled back to 1973. Selma Blair, whose career I’ve never understood (she does seem like a smart girl in interviews and looks cute on red carpets), rolls her eyes so furiously you’d think the eyeballs might tumble out her ears. Molly Shannon didn’t have one funny line in the 17 minutes I watched the show. And poor John Michael Higgins, so funny in the Christopher Guest movies, is completely wasted here as the straight man (he plays Kath’s suitor) to the ladies’ antics. If you’re gonna cast Higgins, you’ve got to let him run wild. Rating: Sucks Dirt

Who IS that actor?

A

B

Have you ever been watching a movie or TV show when an actor/actress shows up and you think, “Who IS that? S/he’s been in everything!” but for the life of you, you just can’t name them or anything they’ve ever done?

That happens to me a lot. Sometimes not being able to ID a familiar actor makes me so crazy I can’t concentrate on the rest of the program. I know I’m not alone in this so I thought it might be fun to do a little quiz.

C

D

On this page are pictures of a few actors whose faces should be very familiar but whose names might escape the casual viewer. See how many you can ID (click on their pictures to see a bigger version), extra credit if you can name some of their credits.

 

E

 

F

Answers are in the comments section. Next time you see these actors on screen, it shouldn’t make you crazy any more!