The show with the most gloriously repellent collection of characters is back on September 13th. I'm so excited!

How does a female TV critic know obscure references about specialist geniuses like Frege and Cantor?

Why does she have the same taste in TV programming that I do?

Will she marry me?

-G

Jemaine Clement in Flight of the Conchords. No "r".

--Mel

>What ever happened to leaving us the hell alone all summer, so we might wander outside for a second and read a book or have a conversation or sip on something cold and boozy?<

Ain't it the truth. I was doing real good when it came to ignoring summer series. I spend enough of the fall season in a state of anxiety over having to pick and choose between shows, and up until this year I insisted on taking the summer off. The lowest I ever sunk was when I accidentally caught a few minutes of BIG BROTHER, and that was easy to not get hooked on. (To say the least--g!) So what happens? MAD MEN comes along--a show so good I'm betting now that nothing in the new fall season will top it. Instead of me being able to be totally unaware of time on Thursdays and blissfully leisuring all over the place, I can't because the fiends behind MM have planted a little reminder in my head, "Hey, it's Thursday--MAD MEN is on tonight." I can't just go and hang out at the bookstore or in the backyard without checking the time. Noooo, I have to make sure that when it's 8:55, I'm on my way to my TV set to catch MM. Damm you, MAD MEN. Curse you to hell...:).

But David Bowie (looking a lot like Jemaine), appears to Bret, not Jemaine. Oh wiat, that was picky.

I have found myself really liking Conchords - which surprised me, since I had been prejudiced against it by Jemaine's series of Outback Steakhouse ads that were really, really irritating.

It's a great show though, and I really hope it comes back for another season.

... publicist of some kind. Too weird.

Aside from that, another good one.

Big Love's second season is faster, funnier and more engaging i'd say. i don't understand the complaint that the wife-interactions are being ignored. The waitress storyline existed to show the differences between Margene and the other wives.

i can hardly believe anyone would complain about Big Love considering the fucking mess John from Cincinnati has become.

LOL!! Nope, just a regular citizen who can't believe she's gotten sucked into planning any part of her summer around a TV show...:)

I suppose it's the "theme of the week," but Havrilesky complaining about diversity is odd...when most of the time she proclaims TV is so trite and predictable. It's been so long since the networks were willing to experiment with anything in the summer. The VP's of programming don't even run off "busted pilots" for series that didn't make it, as a moment of grace to the people who made those failed shows, saying "who knows, if people like it, we might resurrect it from the grave as a midseason replacement."

But the viewers are departing broadcast television in droves, so the networks (despite their conservatism) know they have to have something that at least seems new. Thus, the ABC game shows like Set For Life and National Bingo Night and whatever else, that all seem to be filmed in the identical studio set with only a few cosmetic changes. They're hoping one strand of programming pasta will stick against the refrigerator door.

And the cable nets...they need to get a jump on their rivals. What better time to do it than when all those New York executives and creative types have abandoned their globally-warmed city for a week in the Catskills? But to have the niche channels try to produce dramas and reality shows is like asking a hair stylist to perform a bone marrow transplant. It's not impossible to produce a hit, but mostly it means another body to dispose of in the dumpster. Still, it's experimentation, and it's at least different than their usual tripe.

So, Havrilesky doesn't like TV when it's trite or when it's adventurous. There's no pleasing her, so why should anyone try?

"The HIV" song isn't cheery and ironic. It is creepy. People not deeply familiar with Ween are kind of stuck on the strange factor and miss the fact that they often are sincere and/or sophisticated. The crazy circus music of "The HIV" song is a perfect reaction to the mid-90's awareness of the AIDS threat. Everything fun (sex with strangers, sex with men, needle drugs, emergency blood transfusions...) was suddenly threatening.

On the same album as "The HIV Song" (Chocolate and Cheese) is "Baby Bitch," the best running-into-the-ex-you-really-wish-was-dead song outside of Bob Dylan.

My apologies. I do understand what you are saying about BB. I still fondly remember my summer of binging on pancakes. Good times.

In palmier, more innocent days this time of year, I would be running around my grandfather's place in West Virginia--or rolling through the Smokies to see my grandmother. :)

It's really not difficult to own a TV without a cable or satellite connection, and to view well-written series Showtime or HBO series with discretion, namely by word of mouth. We live in rural Western Colorado and occasionally I go to New York to gain work as a photojournalist. But at home, we are at home, and we are more than content with less to view. Our filter is a low-tech DVD/Video player, which deems to provide us with the most convivial array of movies and series to watch...at night before bed. Other than that, we are active outside, and thus charmed by the esacape into a solid DVD, like Weeds.

Oh well, I'm neither first to comment nor first to nit. So I'll just say this.. when the hell is the final season of The Wire starting?

The last show were the Indian guy wouldn't sell them fruit because he thought they were Aussies was the funniest thing thats been on this summer!