What I'm Watching this Summer

With almost all my regular appointment viewing on hiatus for the summer (or canceled forever, R.I.P. Star's Hollow), whatever shall I watch? Well, it actually hasn't been too hard to sprinkle my TiVo To Do List with a few summer flings, some of which may actually be good enough to watch during the winter months too (if they're allowed to stick around that long)!

Hidden Palms: Ok, so this little summer fling by Kevin Williamson (Dawson's, Scream) is not the classiest show that ever was. It's not quite as sharp and quippy as the first season of The O.C. But it has a neat undercurrent of mystery that Dawson's and the O.C. never had, so it's got enough that's new to keep me interested. I'm hoping the writing will sharpen a little once we get to know the characters and can deal with a bit less exposition. Only 8 episodes on this one though. And I'll be surprised if the CW picks it up (although they definitely need SOMETHING for their schedule, having canceled Gilmore and Veronica Mars).

Falcon Beach: This is one of the shows I probably should just not admit I'm watching. It's terrible. No really, it's terrible. And I watch it every week during the summer. It's in its second season (Why and how? No idea. But I'm still watching...)

Army Wives: This Lifetime original series is really surprisingly good. It's produced by one of the executive producers from Grey's and really well written. It has a great ensemble cast that clicked with me right from the start. (I love Kim Delaney from her role as Rebecca on The O.C.). It portrays a really nice cross-section of army life on one base (different ages, different ranks, different social classes, even different genders and races -- one of the "wives" is a black man whose wife is an officer.)

The Starter Wife: Oh this show is just plain fun. It's billed as a mini-series: 6 or 8 hours I think with no intention of a pick-up, which is too bad. It has a bit of an Ally McBeal sensibility at times because it's funny and has silly dream/fantasy sequences in places. The entire reason this show works is Debra Messing. She's great. She has all the comedic timing she needs, but also has the dramatic, expressive face to pull off this rather melodramatic role without sounding ridiculous.

Deadliest Catch/After the Catch: Ah, the one show I can watch with my boys. We TiVo it and then enjoy it together on the couch before G's bedtime. He's fascinated. After the Catch is a new series to accompany the original; the captains just sit around with host Mike Rowe in a Seattle bar and swap fish stories. And we're fascinated. My dad asked at dinner the other night why anyone watches this. I'm not really sure, but it's just about the best "reality" TV out there. I think it's good because it really seems real. It's just a long documentary, rather than a contrived social experiment or a game show.

Studio 60: I've said my peace about this show. Last night's episode was fantastic. Last week's was not. The week before that it was good. Who knows what the rest of the run will bring, but I'll be watching to find out.

My Boys: The only half-hour comedy on my TiVo season pass list returns in July for a 9 episode run. Can't wait to see what P.J. and the boys are up to!

... and streaming...

The Bachelor: I didn't watch this season. It's not my favorite reality show (because I find it more than a little distasteful to watch this guy "date" multiple women at the same time). But this year's bachelor is hot and ABC posted the last 4 episodes on their website, so I'll watch them and see who "wins."

Six Degrees: This is one of those shows that everyone forgot about. The last 8 episodes never ran on ABC, but they're streaming on the website, so I'll watch them when nothing else is sitting in my TiVo's Now Playing list for me!

All in all, not a bad summer of TV.

Acting Stupid in Front of Famous People

If I lived in L.A. and worked at Il Sole like the Burger, I would see famous people every day. But I don't. Instead, I go to law school in Maine and occasionally catch a glimpse of a vaguely famous person, like the local TV news anchors who go to my gym.

But last night at RiRa's in Portland, I saw an actual star of an actual show that I watch: Jim Gaffigan who plays P.J.'s older brother Andy on My Boys. He was there most of the night. I spotted him as he walked past us on his way to the men's room at about 10:30 and did a double-take. Two hours later, he walked by again and SL decided we just had to have our photo taken with him. I would have been happy with just a picture of him walking by, but SL was willing to follow him and ask for a picture. I suppose we were a bit obnoxious, tracking him through the crowded bar, but he politely obliged. The woman he was talking with snapped the picture for us and we quickly retreated, terribly pleased with ourselves.

I guess I have mixed feelings about how fans should deal with celebrity sightings. On the one hand, Jim really should have been able to hang out at RiRa's without being interrupted by silly strangers looking for a photo. On the other hand, Jim makes his living because SL and I (and the rest of the My Boys fans out there) watch his show. We were polite and the encounter was brief. So, I suppose, we did ok. It was fun, in any case! Here's hoping that I run into other (preferably hotter) TV stars in Portland soon... like, um, say, the once-and-future-Mainer Patrick McDreamy Dempsey. Then I could really make a fool of myself. (That last link is just for you, Burger!)

A Sitcom Worth Watching

Has anyone caught My Boys on TBS? There was a marathon on yesterday during the annoying Super Bowl. Now, don't get me wrong: We watched the Super Bowl here. But we watched in HD, so the TiVo was free to record 7 hours of this charming little sitcom.

As a glance at the list on the left of this page will tell you, I don't generally bother with half hour shows. Sure, I've seen enough episodes of Friends to know the general gist of the show, but most of the time I just don't get addicted enough to sitcoms to want to keep them on my season pass list. It's not that I don't like comedy. I do. But it has to be comedy of a certain sort and not the sort based on the notion that one of the main characters is charmingly annoying or fat or dumb (see, e.g., 30 Rock, Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, etc., the list goes on and on). I love Boston Legal which is, quite arguably, a comedy. Ed was great fun while it lasted. But there haven't been very many thiry-minute shows that make my list.

My Boys has a great female lead, P.J., played fabulously by Jordana Spiro. She is a sports-obsessed, pretty-but-tomboyish Cubs beat reporter. She is surrounded by her male friends who play poker and drink at the local corner pub. Despite my general distaste for baseball, the baseball metaphors that set the theme for each episode make some sense to me and don't seem too forced or obtrusive. The show has been compared to Sex in the City, which is probably fair. But this show will, perhaps, appeal to those of us who would rather kick back on the couch and watch the Pats than shop for designer footwear on Newbury Street.

So I'll watch the four episodes on my TiVo that I haven't gotten to yet, and I'll make sure my TiVo is set to catch the new eps when they come around this summer. You should set yours, too!