New Season Awards

OK, so now that I've gotten most of the new seasony stuff whittled down, here are some of the things that I have to say about it, a few "awards" if you will. Not all of them are positive

Best Pilot:

New Girl. Hands down, this show gets the award for best from moment one. I was a little skeptical, because it seemed a little too similar to a certain ignored TBS sitcom with the EXACT SAME PREMISE. (RIP My Boys...I will continue to sing your praises for all time.) But Zooey Deschanel is adorable, the guys are hilarious and really, can any of us really deny that we've been running around for the past two weeks singing, "Who's that girl? It's Jess!"

Best Comeback:

Glee. Let's face the facts, last season Glee was, umm, let's say it was distracted. Distracted is a good word. But it seems to be on it's way back. Who knew that all it would take was a breath of fresh air from Blaine, the return of Shelby Corcoran, and a new villain in the form of a tone deaf Vanessa Lengies, her character is named Sugar, but I'm just gonna call her Roxanne. Also, shifting the musical focus from top 40 regurgitation to interesting renditions of showtunes, classic pop/rock and standards. There have only been two episodes and we've already gotten six Broadway belts (Ding dong the witch is Dead, Hey Big Spender, Anything Goes/Anything You Can Do I can do Better, Somewhere and Something's Coming.)

Biggest Surprise
Ringer. I thought that Ringer was going to be awful. It isn't it's kind of wonderful in that guilty pleasure CW kind of way. Plus it's Buffy and Richard Alpert (Buffy and Lost related CSD is one crazy combo, and guarantees all kind of out there plot twists.)

Biggest Pilot Let Down
Free Agents. I wanted to love Free Agents. I really did. It has a phenomenal cast. I don't love Free Agents. I don't know how I feel about it. That kind of fits in really well with the spirit of that show though.

Biggest Post Pilot Let Down
Pan Am. I loved the pilot for Pan Am...I loved the concept. Mad Men, on a plane, with spies. But episode 2 was a mess. And Christina Ricci needs more attention. Her character is awesome. She's like, Joan Hollaway...but on a plane.

Best Comeback (Showrunner Edition)
Josh Schwartz. OK, so Chuck had a little bit to do with restoring my faith in Josh, but Hart of Dixie pushed it right on over the edge. If the adorable Rachel Bilson vehicle, and the spy comedy of all spy comedies have been where his focus have been, it explains so much of why Gossip Girl has been so sloppy and awful the past few seasons. And so Josh, I forgive you for Blair/Dan and Jenny/Chuck, so long as Zoe Hart sticks around.

So, that's what's happening in my head right now. What about some other thoughts on the new season?

West Side Stor-Glee

OK, so I spent a good chunk of my life and I don't mean recently, I mean in my entire 23 years, analyzing, over thinking and casting and recasting West Side Story. So now that Glee is embracing this, the greatest of all musicals. (Seriously, it's THE BEST MUSICAL EVER)

So, here's my New Directions Casting of West Side Story (regardless of whatever maimed version Murphy, Falchuck and the other guy decided)

Tony: Blaine (the ONLY choice
Maria: Rachel (again)
Riff: Puck
Bernardo: Mike Chang (did you know that in the show Bernardo doesn't sing, but he has to dance like a Mofo?)
Anita: Santana
Action: Artie (I know he's directing the show, but really? Could it be anyone else in that club singing Officer Krupke?)
Rosalia: Mercedes
Anybodys: Tina
Baby John: Kurt
A-Rab: Finn
Graziella: Brittney
Chino: Ok, look there is no clear choice for Chino in New Directions and we're out of boys.
Velma: Quinn
The Shark Girls: The Cheerios
The Jet Boys: The Warblers

So yeah, that's how it should happen.

It probably won't.

Edit By Big Bro Mike: Finn as Riff and a random warbler as A-Rab solves a few problems. It allows Puck to play Bernardo and them you can shift Mike Chang to Chino. There DONE!

What I'm loving so far

So, the new TV season is off and running, even if all the racers aren't in yet. Here's some of the stuff I like so far...

1. The new Sheriff on Sons of Anarchy and his no nonsense dealings with the club, and that dick US Attorney.
   
2. The return of Lea Michelle's bangs.
3. Two Broke Girls. Everything about Two Broke Girls. (Yes, even the horse and the bad puns.)
   
4. The cast of Up All Night, even if the pilot didn't totally rock.
5. That Dharma and Greg toured Charlie Harper's house on the Two and A Half Men premier.
6. Quinn Fabray's Gwen Stefani hair.
7. The impending domination of Fox and then the planet by the Deschanel sisters.
8. The impending domination of all of TV and then the less quirky parts of the planet by the cast of Buffy.
9. Speaking of Buffy, Ringer doesn't suck. So that's kind of cool.
10. Terry O'Quinn's character on Hawaii Five-0 is basically John Locke.
11. This season Robin is going to be chasing Barney, not the other way around.
12. Oh and Victoria is back on How I Met Your Mother. VICTORIA people! This going to be classic Mosby.
13. Finding out that Juice is half black and that the reason why he lied about it is the Sons don't accept black members. (Also, Juice gets a storyline, this almost makes up for the loss of Half-Sack...almost)
    
14. New Directions is putting on West Side Story.
15. Beercules.
16. Vanessa Lengies on Glee. (She can dance to one of Quinn's Donna Summer songs)

So, that's the beginning. After the rest of the week (through Sunday) I'll make another list. Excluding the shows I listed here.

Summer Lovin

So I spent the summer finally watching two shows that I'd been meaning to watch for a while.

Mad Men and Chuck.

You do not get more different than these two shows. Or their leading men.

I have huge crushes on both of them.

Jon Hamm
and Zachary Levi

One, is a lovable dork who I would go on silly dates with and then introduce to my mother.

The other I would be terrified to speak to but would totally let him take me on a conference room table. (Has Don Draper done it on a conference room table? I feel like he has...)

Anyway, so I got two new TV crushes this year. YAY!

Plus both of their erm...side projects are equal deserving of my adoration, such as:




Really? Wouldn't you buy Jon Hamm's John Ham?





And Zach Levi's a GD DISNEY PRINCE! And the best looking one since Aladdin, I might add.

Oh, and um, speaking of people I'm in love with...

Thor comes out on DVD tomorrow....

SIGH....

See SAMCRO Ride

I've decided to recap Sons of Anarchy's season premier last night in the same style as See Spot Run.

OK, not really, but that's what I kept thinking about...

You know:

This is Jax.



See Jax declare that he's leaving SAMCRO?

Declare Jax, declare!

This is Tara.


See Tara make terrible decisions regarding her relationship with Jax?

Make terrible decisions Tara, make terrible decisions!

OK...so it was more complicated than that. In addition to that Opie and Lyla got married and Opie said he couldn't wait to "add to their family" and then Lyla made a guilty face because you know, she had the abortion last season.

We met Tara and Jax's son, Thomas, and we saw Able toddle around and cause some kind of problem.

But really? Can we spend a whole fourth season with Jax brooding and waffling about leaving the club and Tara nagging him about it until Gemma does something to totally manipulate one or both of them so that they have to stay in Charming?

Manipulate Gemma, manipulate!

CSD: Fantasy Edition

I just had a really upsetting bout of my Character Separation Disorder.

I've dove headfirst into George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Ice and Fire series over the past week, and last night and today finally finished out the first season of HBO's adaptation of the books, Game of Thrones.

After shutting off Thrones, I started flipping and found The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring on Starz.

I was horrified as I watched Ned Stark (Sean Bean) try to steal The Ring from Frodo. HORRIFIED! Of course, here Bean was not playing Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, but Boromir of Gondor. And while Ned is you know, the man, and holds honor above everything, (except maybe the life of his teenage daughter...*sigh* Poor Sansa) Boromir is kind of a dick. But still ends up dead before the end of the first book. (Seriously, try playing a character who makes it.)

While the one thing that I've been assured is absolutely true in Martin's fantasy world is that no one is safe, I still find myself continually shocked when characters I love die.

Anyway, other ghosts of fantasy epics past who keep showing up in Westeros?

Osha, a Wildling (indigenous people) who befriends Bran Stark (the cutest little kid on the planet) is played by the same actress who played Nymphadora Tonks in Harry Potter. I do not want to see Osha die a horrible grisly Ice and Fire death, but at least I'll be prepped, having seen her do it before. (That sigh from before, for Poor Sansa, also applies to Poor Teddy Lupin).

It's also confusing to see Sarah Connor (or her TV version at least) running around ordering the death of direwolves and boinking her brother as she plays Queen Cersei. But, hey, at least she has a different hair color, such simple distractions make all the difference when you're suffering from CSD.

Game of Thrones in general is like begging me for a big ol' CSD attack, but I think I managed it pretty well.

E + Sloan TLF

As a follow up to my post about last week's Entourage.

Sloan is moving to New York.

Which I'm interpreting to mean that the show is ending with E moving to New York to be with her.

And again, with the whining, if it's anything else.

Seriously? Look how cute they are. TLF!