I Watch a Bunch of Television

I am definitely getting my money's worth from Netflix. I am chewing through TV shows like there's no tomorrow. I'm of course waiting semi patiently for Season 4 of The Wire, which still has no release date. Annoying. But I just watched the 3rd season of Entourage. I adore the character of Ari. He does some of the most awful things to his family if he thinks it will help his career (dissing his daughter's Grandpa at her Bat Mitzvah to allow his client to cut the challah with her instead was classic Ari) but it is his scenes that are the most riveting by far. The writers do a great job of imbuing Ari with enough tidbits of humanity that he cannot become a two dimensional bastard but not so much that we lose track of his essential sliminess. Definitely looking forward to the rest of that.

Season 3 of Nip/Tuck was beyond stupid. Though the Carver sub-plot was interesting and actually terrifying at first, to the point where I was watching with my hands over my eyes, it became more and more far-fetched and culminated in the most ridiculous plot twist I have ever seen. I won't go into detail in case you plan to watch, but suffice it to say by the end I didn't care if the entire cast were sliced into ribbons. Still, I haven't given up, since the first two seasons had some delicious writing and character development, particularly in the case of Julian. Like Ari, he is the villain/hero, the one we're supposed to hate but really like a lot more than the morally upstanding, stable characters like Sean who are mostly a snoozefest.

The premier of October Road is on right now. Not only is it boring, the main character's range of expression seems to be slight variations of puppy dog sad. I stopped caring about him ninety seconds in.

The Comeback, the post-Friends Lisa Kudrow vehicle, was on HBO for one season and then canceled. I've watched half the episodes so far--it's fantastic! I highly recommend it. Very funny, great commentary on the never-ending invasion of reality television. Plus, it also stars Laura Silverman. I didn't know who she was either, but I recognized her voice--she was the receptionist Laura on "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist." And, as I was looking this up online, I also discovered that she's Sarah Silverman's sister. Isn't blogging educational?