Damages: Pilot

"If you were a man, I'd be worried." - Patty Hewes

I think it's pretty clear that FX is on to something big here. It didn't take much for Patty Hewes (Glenn Close as good as she's ever been) to be FX's new reigning female lead. Frankly, I'm terrified of her.

Patty Hewes. The beginning, middle, and end when it comes to law in this twisted tale of deception, lies, loyalty, and death. From the very beginning when I first meet a bloody Ellen Parsons right to the end when she calls for a lawyer, you're constantly asking how Patty fits into the whole mess. I was given plenty of clues. Some subtle and some not so much (Saffron's dog collar was about as in your face as you can get). But I truly loved the way the story unfolded, especially through the flashbacks.

Some shows use flashbacks only as it suits them. They're peppered erratically throughout the show, only used when it fills a hole in the story. Damages has a bit of a twist on this usage. The flashbacks are the true story, whereas the present day stuff (where the real mystery lies) feels almost like a flash-forward. It doesn't feel forced either. The difference is that rather than being quick blips on the radar, the flashbacks are the meat and the present day stuff is lacking.

Whenever a scene from the present day popped in, it was solely because something in the past triggered it. There was always something to tie it in. It was a nice touch and it made the entire episode flow much more smoothly despite the fact that we were moving back and forth from six months ago to present day. It felt seamless and a lot of shows (films, too) using that technique don't achieve that feel as often as you'd like.

OK, enough about the style of the show. The short answer is that it works and it works well. On to the characterization. Rather than dissect everyone, let's just look at Patty and Frobisher (Danson is about as far away from Cheers and Becker as you can get in this role). I feel like it's still a bit too early to take apart Ellen, suffice to say that I love how I was introduced to her as the victim only to find out immediately that she's actually an integral part to the entire story.

I love the connections between Patty and Arthur. They're almost the same person. Dedicated, successful, and extremely good at what they do. By the end of the hour I wasn't sure which side I was rooting for. They're both ruthless, but at the same time they both have families that they're trying to look out for and provide for. It's a dichotomy that just happens to be full of similarities. That sounds completely contradictory, but I hope you get what I'm trying to say.

The one thing I don't get is why try and paint those two so similarly? Frobisher is supposed to be the classic Enron-esque bad guy. Of course you want to introduce things that make him seem wronged and innocent. Why not play against stereotypes and actually make him the genuine good guy and Patty the legit bad girl? For a while I thought they were going this route until I found out that Patty was indeed married, had a son, and she was deeply troubled about her family. So she has a soft side. Fine. I just think it may have been better to save that tidbit for a few episodes. The longer she seemed completely heartless, the better. Although, the final few scenes did save some face in that regard.

Other stuff on my mind:

• Why is Frobisher trying to buy out a settlement if he truly says he did nothing? Well that's a dumb question. Obviously he did it. Or does he actually just want this behind him so he can get on with his life? You could make a good argument for either scenario.
• Again, with Frobisher. Why is he invested in Katie's restaurant? Sounds like a conspiracy to me. Something is being covered up. The question is what did she see or hear that fateful weekend in Florida?
• Did anyone actually believe that Patty really fired Tom? By doing so, she created a shoulder for Ellen to cry on. He would be too valuable to lose since Ellen trusts him.
• Finally, where does Hollis Nye play into Ellen's life? She turned down his job offer, but it appears that she kept in touch with him.

Damages... thoroughly impressive.

Eureka: Unpredictable

Everything starts off great for Jack... Until the lights go out and his ex-wife appears in the shadows like some sort of evil pop up vampire rabbit. Well, not so much rabbity, but you get the idea.Eureka's not perfect, but this one suffered a bit from plot holes and post processing issues. The visual effects were well done, but there was a fairly bad loop that didn't even sound like Jack as he exited his office with his ex-wife in tow. Otherwise, the effects were pretty good.

My major plot issue is the ex-wife's reaction to Eureka. She shows a bit of surprise, but no consideration for the apparent safety of her daughter in a place where the sky seems to be spewing death.As Henry gets closer to Kim's work, things with Beverly seem to be accelerating. Other than the bug she planted (which she obviously recovered, why is she so concerned with Henry's acceptance at GD).

There seems to be something else going on behind the scenes. Could the accident have been caused by something else?Nathan's email to Allison was clever. Letting her know that he'd been studying her son through an anonymous email was an interesting move. It's apparent that Allison is appreciating that Nathan took an interest in his son's situation, but Allison isn't quite sure if it was due to the relationship with the artifact or actual parental concern.

Taggart was nowhere to be found, but it sounds like I'll see the ex-wife, Abby for another episode or two. She said she'd be staying for a week, and Zoe is definitely an unsettled issue. Since she's 16, she may have more say in whether she stays with her father or moves back to L.A.

Once again I felt sorry for Jack at the end. He definitely wanted to turn to Allison after Abby's final statement, and his frustration was understandable.

The Kill Point: Who's Afraid of Mr. Wolf

The Kill Point is the latest in a long line of bank-robbery-gone-bad/hostage negotiation movies and television shows. Just this past season, I saw similar programming in the likes of The Nine and Standoff, though neither of these programs fared very well. Thankfully, The Kill Point doesn't have to worry about staying on the air because Spike TV would have no reason not to broadcast the remaining episodes of this summer miniseries. True, the first episode was very formulaic, heavy on some tried and true cliches, but it worked and I'm now curious to see how the situation will unfold.

The bank robbery itself nearly went off without a hitch, except for the police arriving earlier than expected. After a lengthy and fierce gun battle in the street, the would-be thieves retreated back inside the bank; save for the getaway driver who was able to run from the scene without incident. So began the hostage situation. Also, so began the cliches. The civilians in the bank included your standard fare: an ineffective guard, a hysterical bank manager, a rich man's daughter and a sickly old man. (Ooh, bonus! The old man is gay.) The hostage takers also had their share of familiar stereotypes. There's the wide-eyed young one, the slightly crazy one and, of course, the cool-headed man in charge, Mr. Wolf.

John Leguizamo as Mr. Wolf is a great choice. He plays the role of "the bad guy you root for" very well. His solid performance worked magic with the less than stellar dialogue, raising the level of the material to above average. His counterpoint on the outside is the negotiator with the perfect track record, Captain Horst Cali, played effectively by former teen heartthrob Donnie Wahlberg.

As the hostage crisis unfolded, it soon came to light that Mr. Wolf and his crew (Rabbit, Mouse, Piggy, Cat) are all former soldiers, having seen action in Iraq. This upped the ante on the negotiation as it became clear Cali couldn't anticipated what these war-hardened veterans are capable of.

The second half of the premiere saw this become a focus as Mr. Wolf threatened to kill one of the hostages if electricity wasn't restored to the building. This gave me some great suspense as I watched Cali struggle with the decision to give in to the demand while Mr. Wolf had to resign himself to the fact that he may very well need to kill an innocent pawn in this cat and mouse game. However, the whole ordeal lost much of its drama with an in-your-face verbal countdown from the head of the SWAT team. Moments like this, that dumbed things down to make sure the audience was ultra-aware of what was going on, kept the episode from being something more than just above average.

As I've stated, a lot of what I saw in this first episode is material I'm familiar with, but the new twists The Kill Point has thrown in has me intrigued. The driver of the getaway car who ran off when the heist went sour hasn't deserted his men. In the closing moments, I saw that he had contacted three other former charges of Mr. Wolf and they were set on getting the rest of their platoon out of there. Equally engaging is the fact that Mr. Wolf was able to get a message to real estate magnate Alan Beck, whose daughter is being held hostage, setting up what looks to be a secondary set of negotiations outside of the control of the police.

Had this been a movie with an ending, I'd probably be less than impressed. But because the story has plenty of room to grow and surprise me, I'm excited to see what the next episode will bring.

The Closer: Dumb Luck

So... what's wrong with Brenda? She's getting fevers, she's highly emotional and weepy, and she feels like she has a cold. It seemed like the writers were hinting that she's pregnant because of her weepiness, irritability and her apparent craving for mashed potatoes. But, what about the fevers?

Brenda's mysterious health problems seemed like they were the point of this episode, and not the crime she was solving. Heck, I solved the crime before she did. When the big, dumb personal trainer kept insisting that Wednesday was the 25th, I knew he got his dates and his murder victims mixed up. And I knew right away that the dumb blonde was the one who hired him to kill her husband, not her boyfriend.

I enjoyed the two dumb characters: the killer and the wife, but I did not enjoy the obsessive-compulsive valet. Like a handful of other guest actors, he took his character a little over the top. He was waaaay to nervous and trembling and seemed a little like Rainman and less like someone who has obsessive-compulsive disorder. He needed his floss like Dustin Hoffman needed his Wapner. Except Dustin Hoffman did it much better. I was annoyed by him the same way I was annoyed by the killer in the season premiere, who slobbered and snotted all over himself in the interview room. Talk about trying to steal a scene!

But, like I said, the crime really wasn't what was important in this episode. The point of this one was to advance the budget cuts plot by requiring the priority homicide team to train for terrorist attacks so they could get funding from the federal government, and to open up a new storyline about Brenda's mysterious health issue. Brenda met with a doctor at the end of the episode, so maybe next episode I'll learn her diagnosis. Brenda seemed like she already knew it was something serious and so she was avoiding being told about it. That's kind-of why I don't think it's pregnancy. Good Lord-- could you imagine Dep. Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson with a baby? She can barely keep herself together. Plus, I'm not so sure I'd welcome such a dramatic change in character. Fritz definitely has to be the stay-at-home dad in that situation.

A couple of great one-liners from the dumb blonde wife:

"The last time I valeted my car the attendant guy stole my pot so I don't valet my car anymore."

"This is a tapestry of justice. That's what it is. A complete tapestry!"

Mad Men: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

If there's any justice in this TV land, I'll be hearing a lot about Mad Men at this time next year. The television landscape is filled with a lot of shows that are just the same as other shows on other networks. Even when I say "there's nothing else like this on TV right now," it's usually not true. Mad Men is one show I can truly say is rather original. Of course, it's original by being retro. It's New York City, 1960. The world of Madison Avenue advertising men. And it is men, as most of the women are in the secretarial pool or gum chewing telephone operators.

But the women have power too, in ways the men don't see.

The setting is the Sterling Cooper advertising agency. New girl Peggy starts the day as Don Draper's new secretary. She's nervous, afraid of the new technology (electric typewriters!), but she also goes to the doctor to get birth control because she knows that sleeping her way to the top might be part of the job description. The other girls pretty much confirm that.

Draper is having trouble coming up with a new ad campaign for Lucky Strikes because medical professionals and Reader's Digest have begun examining the health effects of smoking. How can he come up with an ad slogan that will be successful in such a changing world? But Draper is actually the one who has the shades of a conscience (more than others anyway - all the other guys are drinking and cheating and pretty much those type of jerks I know), even when he's trying to sell us cigarettes. He doesn't want anything to do with Peggy, even though she comes on to him, and he even apologizes to the female head of a company, a woman he insulted in a meeting. He knows the world is changing, and he's trying to adapt.

There are a couple of questions I have about the plot developments. Would Jews really be talked about that way in the business world of 1960 New York City?

This is a great show, and I'm just as surprised that 1.) it's a summer show, and 2.) it's on AMC. But there is something so glorious and meaty about this show. It's for adults, and not in the same way that, say, Deadwood is for adults. This is glossy, old-fashioned entertainment, a show more about characters and social morals and the way the 1950s became the 1960s. I have to pay attention. And that worries me a bit. I can imagine people tuning into this, not knowing what to think, and finding it "slow going." There's nothing slam-bang about this show. It's all about the acting and the writing and the mood and the style and the look and feel of 1960 NYC.

Oh, the look. This show gets everything so beautifully right. The way everyone is smoking, the cut of the suits, the haircuts, the way the characters talk, the cars, the dresses. Even small touches, like clocks on a wall or curtains in a office and the new electric typewriters the girls use, it's all done so well that the sets are characters themselves (and not in that obviously kitschy way that modern movies usually depict the late 50s/early 60s - this is closer to L.A. Confidential than Happy Days). This isn't is a show I'll just "watch every week," it's a world I want to live in.

The cast is uniformly great, from Hamm to boss John Slattery to new secretary Moss to creepy suckup Pete , who is getting married but still wants to dip his pen in company ink. This is juicy, intelligent soap opera stuff, and I mean that in the best way possible.

Mad Men is like a movie in the sense that it's just really well shot, like some glorious Technicolor flick of the 1950s, filling the screen with detail and life, and a respect for the audience. Anyway, check it out, because...well, as I said, there's nothing else like it on television.

The Office: Ben Franklin

The Office was in truly excellent form. From Michael's "epiphery" at the beginning to create a video for a future son to his revelation that "President" Ben Franklin is "kind of a creep," the episode was packed with laugh-out-loud moments.

Michael, as usual, stole the show. It was great to see him be his completely inept self at such tasks as jumpstarting a car and taking off a woman's bra, but Michael also had some of the funniest lines of the episode. His description of the bachelor party he's throwing for Bob Vance first as a "guy's afternoon in -- GAI" then as an "hour-long shower with guys" was just classic. Another great, similar moment was Michael calling the steaks "man-meat" -- to which Dwight of course yelled without any sarcasm, "I want some man meat!"

Other Michael highlights of the episode include his nonstop giggling at the sex shop (it was a great touch to have absolutely everything in the background pixilated), bringing the same George Foreman grill he burned his foot on to the office for grilling the steaks and admitting it, and repeatedly telling the stripper that she smells like Tide detergent.

I also got some great progression this episode on the Pam-Jim-Karen storyline. Karen and Pam were getting along really well while talking about the Ben Franklin impersonator, and when Karen brought up Jim I just knew it was going to turn horribly awkward. And as awkward as Karen and Pam's conversation was ("You're not still interested in him?" "Oh, yeah." "Really?" "Oh no, I was just confused by your phrasing.") it was arguably topped by Pam's stumbling small talk earlier in the episode with Jim ("Gotta get your REM cycle"). With both moments I felt sorry for Pam and just hoped she would stop talking and making things worse.

Pam was also the center of some other great comedy moments this episode, as she got more than her fair share of attention from Mr. Benjamin Franklin. Her questions involving Franklin's rumored girlfriends in Paris to whether he wears boxers, briefs, or pantaloons hilariously led to Benjamin -- a.k.a. Gordon -- hitting on Pam. Not even Pam's syphilis question deterred the erstwhile Gordon. Overall, this could be a big turning point for Pam, as she told Ryan that she'd be okay going on a date with one of his business school friends.

Missing this episode were both Oscar and Andy, with no mention of where they were. The stripper was even directed to sit in Oscar's usual seat. Regardless, the comedy most definitely didn't suffer -- "Ben Franklin" is one of the best Office episodes this season.

Rescue Me: Black

Wow... looks like the bottom of my Dustbuster." - Sean

Well there you go. Leary and Tolan still have plenty hidden up their sleeves. After last week's extremely sub-par episode, they came back with this one. That was one heck of an opening, huh? From Janet forgetting the baby in the parking lot to the tractor-trailer truck bowling right into it... just another Tommy Gavin nightmare. If anything though, this is just his way of manifesting his very real concerns for the safety of this still unnamed baby. Tommy has been sober for some time and it doesn't take a genius to see that Janet is going downhill fast. Is his new option really worth pursuing though?

Of course I'm talking about Sheila's desire to raise what has turned out to be Johnny's baby. The tot's newly grown black hair seems to point in that direction anyway. Despite Janet's current dislike for the baby, does anyone else actually see her relinquishing her motherhood to Sheila of all people? I don't. But with the way this episode went it certainly seems like Tommy is going to be pushing for this to happen. Just as long as Troy is out of the way. Dressing just like Tommy? That guy is super creepy.

Speaking of Sheila, she finally got caught in her lie and I'm not so sure Tommy even made the connection. Nona said she pulled Tommy from the fire and his soldier was standing at attention. Well that completely contradicts what Sheila said and Nona's info seemed to cure Tommy's brief stint with impotence. It's like he got his masculinity back by knowing he wasn't impotent before. Getting whipped at the NYPD/FDNY hockey game didn't help either, but it seemed like he missed out on what Nona's revelation really means. Sheila lied about the fire. If anything, I suppose it's good that Tommy didn't take the money from her. He already helped her get it. If she gets found out, maybe he can still clear his name. Imagine Sheila in jail. That'd be a good story to tell.

OK, few other things I wanted to address. First up is this feaud that supposedly went on between Jack McGee (Jerry Reilly) and Leary. At first, when I read about it, I thought it sounded a little gossipy. Perhaps just some sour grapes from McGee since he was being killed off the show. After this episode, it has some weight now in my opinion. That scene where they were picking away at the Chief's cremains? Then Franco even tossed a cigarette butt into the ashes. I have to say, even for this show, that was a bit disrespectful. Almost seemed like it was Leary taking one final stab at McGee. I could be way off here. Just a thought.

Speaking of the chief, how about the new one? Jerry Adler (a.k.a. Hesh Rabkin from The Sopranos) has joined the cast as Chief Sydney Feinberg. One episode in and I love the character. From his in your face Jewishness to his mythical large penis, he's got some complexity. Here's my gripe and it's no knock on Adler - he's a great actor, but maybe a little miscast in this case. He seems a bit old, doesn't he? I mean, the FDNY didn't offer Jerry his old job back because of age and health reasons right? Are we really supposed to believe that Feinberg is the picture of good health? Just seemed a little inconsistent to me. And what about Needles? Is he still going to be around in some sort of Assistant Chief capacity?

My final talking point is Bart. This one is brief, but I think it's important and may play into the rest of the season in terms of conflict big time. Franco and Lou wined and dined him and made an offer. Bart's in. Ignoring his ridiculous request to be called "Sean," what happens when the rest of the house finds out he's Muslim? Unless my ears deceived me, he did leave Franco and Lou with "assalamu 'alaykum." Right? Last time I checked, this was a pretty prideful house with a lot of animosity for those behind 9/11. All I'm saying is this can't be good.

Alright, I lied... one more thing. I think I'm sick of Teddy. He hasn't really been in this season all that much and I don't miss him. They should have just kept him in jail. Tommy's dad hasn't even been in this season and I haven't thought about him once. If they can just forget about Tommy's brother Timo after season one... I say forget about Teddy. Either that or give him something to work with. Getting found by Ellie and sent to rehab isn't cutting it.

Oh man, there's still more. How could I forget?!? Black Tommy! Spirit Tommy! Shadow Tommy! I don't know what the heck to call it but just when I thought we were going to get another episode without any ghosts... I got that. Is it his conscience? "It" told Tommy to go to an AA meeting and then "it" gave him a small prayer book. I don't get it. Is this Tommy's subconscious telling him to get his crap together since Janet is falling apart?

Final thought? Lou is an idiot for telling Theresa that he wants a moratorium on sex. Wow. Wait until the guys get wind of that. Lou's gonna get skewered.