jack bauer makes illegal u-turns all the time with no repercussions, but keifer sutherland can't - especially when his blood alcohol level is above the legal limit as it was yesterday when he was pulled over by the cops.
it was like 1:35 in the morning and he was taken down to the hollywood police station and booked for a misdemeanor dui. he was released on $25 000 bail and his court date is oct. 16
i always enjoy a good list, and with the tv season coming to an end i thought it would be an opportune time for a list of the best shows on television. i know a top 10 list is standard, but for this topic i went with a top 15.
with such a grand topic i did set a few rules for myself:
- the show has to currently be on the air, or have just finished it's season or be already renewed for another season (if The knights Of Prosperity really does come back then it has a great chance of making next seasons list).
- i had to have seen at least one full season of the show (this made the Tudors and The Riches ineligible, although they are already on my mind for next seasons list)
- i also had to have seen more then just the first season if the show is already in it's third or fourth season (that eliminated Nip/Tuck. i enjoyed season one but haven't got to the next ones yet. that also took Deadwood off the list)
- finally, i obviously had to have watched the show, and as i am only human with only so much time in the day, even with a dvr i can't watch everything. so here is a quick listing of shows that i just haven't watched yet, but from what i have heard they could have been contenders for the list: The Wire, Dirt, Entourage, Heroes, Big Love, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
i have written fuller reviews of some of these shows and i will link to those reviews for those series. now, let's let the listing begin...
1-Boston Legal
2-Rescue Me
3-Sopranos
4-The Shield
5-Scrubs
6-Battlestar Galactica
7-24
8-Lost
9-The Office
10-Friday Night Lights
11-My Name Is Earl
12-30 Rock
13-Rome
14-ER
15-Dexter
just missed the cut: The Simpsons, Weeds, Survivor,
i know it's a little late, but i thought that line from the episode of 24 a couple weeks ago was frickin' awesome and i had to mention it.
next bit of 24 talk is the relationship between acting president daniels and his hot blonde assistant lisa. normally this show is great in the casting department and i thought powers boothe was a perfect v.p. daniels. however, the love affair between him and lisa looks so uncomfortable (did you see that kiss at the end of this weeks episode).
speaking of lisa: is it just me or does anyone else think that there is more to this chick then meets the eye? she has got something going on and i'm pretty sure it ain't gonna be good.
Get 24 on DVD
i am an old time 24 fan. from the moment i heard about the show many months before it premiered i thought it sounded like an original and interesting premise. it lived up to my high-expectations back then and has continued to do so through each subsiquent intense and edge-of-your-seat season.
i have never watched a more intense show then 24. the show provides lots of action and intrigue, but yet it also manages to create strong attachments to the characters. the crisis doesn't just bring the characters together, but it also brings them closer to us and we feel a real sense of loss when anyone, even a minor character, gets killed off, which happens quite a bit (i would name off a few, but i don't want to fuin it for anyone who is still a few seasons behind and catching up on dvd).
and you do want to catch up on dvd if at all possible. sure you could watch any season individually, but there are a lot of recurring characters and references to prior seasons that makes it much more exciting and worthwhile to go through them in order (it is always a great moment when some charcter from a past season appears unexpectidly to help or hurt the situation)
at first i was a little worried/curious as to how they were going to make this into anything more then a one or two season show. but they have managed to do so, and just when you think a season itself is getting old or has nowhere to go they throw a wrench in the works and take you off in another direction. for example: the whole audrey raines thing this season.
although there are complaints about the show focusing on the middle east for its bad guys, anyone who has watched the show knows that they have had bad guys from all over the world, including: china, mexico, ex-american agents, russia and the american government itself. there is even a rumour that the bad guys in season 7 will be quebec seperatists (a faction of quebecers that advocate for the province to seperate from canada and become a sovreign nation) - it's about time the show 'came to canada': kieffer sutherland is canadian and one of the producers of the show, jon casser, is from montreal.
whatever they decide to do i will be there watching every second of the next 24 hours and of course there are still five hours left this season.
grade: A+
last night fox premiered the show Drive. the show, about an illegal cross-country road race has been in the works and re-works for over a year now and has finally made it to air. so what do we get for all that waiting and fixing and such? we get a corny, stereotypical, poorly written, fun and kind of exciting show - think of it as the movie Rat Race meets the tv show Fastlane with a Prsion Break mystery of unknown forces thrown in.
so ya, i kind of liked it, but in a guilty pleasure sort of way. some of the dialogue made me groan and the characters all felt like cookie cutter 'screen writing for dummies' creations, but i wanted to see what would happen next.
Now, i try not to judge a show based on the pilot episode because usually they get to wrapped up in giving us information and introducing characters and their characteristics and the episode tends to feel a little forced. as it is now though, i think it is, like i said, an medium range show that i will follow. However, if the poor ratings for last nights premier are any indication, it might be a short lived guilty pleasure. we shall see.
the premise is original at least (meaning it isn't about cops and doesn't take place in a hospital or law firm) and they did set up plenty of mystery and unknowns that will be revealed as the race goes along. all that being said, Drive doesn't yet appear to be more then that. they didn't take this actually could-be-exciting premise and turn it into something smart and really interesting like Lost (i am a little surprised given that one of the show's creators is tim minear, who was one of the guys behind the short lived, but excellent, show Wonderfalls that was on fox a few years back).
instead they created a guilty pleasure and didn't really go beyond that. is that a bad thing? not necessarily. it is what it is, and while it isn't as good as Prison Break or 24 (the two other monday night adrenaline rushes) so far it is a fun enough ride that has intrigued me enough to make me keep watching for now.
p.s. one of my biggest pet peeves in movies and tv is during driving scenes when the character driving is talking to the passenger and spends more time looking at the other person then actually watching the road. given that Drive spends most of its time in cars, that is something they really have to watch out for, cause there have been a few times where it was laughable.
grade: B-
Boston Legal - Season One
Boston Legal - Season 2
i am a little behind on some of my tv watching (actually just got up to date with 24 today after watching 3 episodes back to back) so i just got to last week's episode of Boston Legal today, but i had to talk about it.
Boston Legal is one of, maybe even, my favorite show on tv. this is david e. kelly's masterwork. the writing is so strong with its ability to be hysterically funny and touching and dramatic and political all in the same hour without missing a beat. and don't forget the great performances week after week by spader and shatner and the rest of the cast.
well if you missed last weeks episode, then go find it and watch it, because it was great. the main storyline involved a man holding the law office hostage while they re-enacted the trail from 1957 that had found a man (who he brought with him at gun point) not guilty of killing his mother. the lawyers for the man had been a very young denny crane and his father.
what made the episode even more interesting was the flashback scenes with denny crane and his father. for those scenes they actually took footage from an appearance shatner made on the tv show The Defender back in 1957. the integration of the footage was powerful and worked within the context of the story and the situation. it kind of made me think about that movie with terrance stamp, The Limey in which they use footage from an older terrance stamp film, Poor Cow.
great show, great episode!!
i watch a lot of television (the purchase of my DVR is one of the best things i have ever done), but i have to say that i have watched maybe 10 minute in total of Dancing With The Stars in their first few seasons. it just never really interested me. however, here i am watching it right now and have been doing so for the last 45 minutes (i've been doing work and other stuff at the same time, but none the less i have been watching it).
all that to say i kind of enjoy it. however, the dancing is the part i enjoy the least. what makes it entertaining to watch is all the pre-dance footage they show of the couples practicing and relating to each other and talking about each other. that's where the producers know what they are doing. they want you to feel connected to these c and b listers, root for them, wonder which couples are fooling around with each other (maybe that's just me), etc...
so i'm not going to be DVRing it or anything, but i might flip it on again at some point in the future.
p.s. i do have to say that bruno is pretty annoying though
p.p.s. just in case you were wondering: don't worry, i record Prison Break and 24.
grade: C+
