The week in review

The TV season isn't in full swing yet, so there are still gaping holes in my viewing habits. That being said, here's a list of not so much my favorite shows from the past week, but the shows I watched. Ranked in order of awesomeness.

1. The Shield: This is the highlight of any week it's on. God, this show is good. The tension just keeps winding up, and you know it's going to explode before the season's over. Vic playing two organized crime syndicates off each other while double-crossing both of them? Vic and Shane working together to make things "right"? Vic trying to keep his career as Claudette has him in her sights? And while his own daughter almost blows everything up by trying to press charges against him? Tick tick tick tick.......this is not going to end well for anyone. Oh, and how scary were the Spook Street boys? And they're NOT one of the Top 10 gangs? Yikes.

2. Fringe: OK, the acting wasn't great, some plot points were absurd and there was a ton of awkward exposition. But the mystery was outstanding and I love conspiracy theories. The Cate Blanchett lookalike they got to star in the show is no Dana Scully, but that's probably a good thing -- there are already too many X-Files similarities. But I generally liked her character. Pacey -- err, I mean Joshua Jackson's character -- was a little young to be quite so patronizing, but once he dropped that act he was tolerable. And you've gotta love any show with Lance Reddick (Daniels from The Wire). He's just as ominous here as he was in his guest role on Lost last season. The giants locator subtitles were kinda cool (and were reminiscent of the Lost title, hmmm), but that's a trick that might get old. But overall, good production values, nice complex mystery that'll take forever to solve, and good bits of humor to break the tension. And I love how it was shot in Boston in winter. Like X-Files when it was shot in Vancouver, the location adds all kinds of moody undercurrents.

3. Entourage: The boys are back. Are they better than ever? That remains to be seen. But after a year-plus layoff, it's good to have them back. The opening scenes made me want to go to Mexico ("Wow, it's gorgeous, I never knew the coast of Baja was like that!"), until I realized they shot it in Hawaii ("Oh. Nevermind"). Vince is broke and a Hollywood pariah after his awful Medellin (reviewed in a hilarious guest appearance by Richard Roeper), which went straight to video (ouch). Hopefully he'll bounce back quickly because this show is at its best when Vince & Co. are living the high life. Broke Vince doesn't do much for me. But that bizarre bit with Drama and his new French girlfriend chirping at each other cracked me up.

4. Gossip Girl: Last week I said I wasn't hooked on it. OK, maybe I'm a little hooked. It's soapy and trashy, but not brainless. Which gives it one up on The Hills. This is quickly becoming my guilty pleasure show. The dialogue is snappy, the plot twists are delicious (Nate becoming a man-ho? Nice!), and it's self-aware enough that you know it's never going to have "a very special episode."

5. Sons of Anarchy: It seems to exist in the same universe as The Shield (One-Niners, corrupt cops everywhere), but not in the real world. It just throws me how it's set in San Joaquin County, but in a San Joaquin County with mountains, where Lodi is the major city, where heroin is bigger than meth, and where it's not oppressively hot. That bit of fantasy aside, I'm liking this show. I'm glad Charlie Hunnam (the Brit from Undeclared) finally has a good show, Katy Sagal is building an Emmy-worthy role as the resident Ophelia/Lady MacBeth, and I love how the gang is made up of a who's-who of character actors who look like serial killers (especially Kim Coates and Tommy Flanagan). I'm not completely hooked yet, and I hope it gets more compelling, because if not, it's in danger of dropping to my wait-for-DVD list once more shows start up.

6. Burn Notice: I haven't watched this week's episode yet, but it came back after a three-week, U.S. Open-induced break. This is one of my favorite shows and it has a secure spot on my weekly best list, even sight unseen.

7. The Hills. I don't know if I saw the most recent episode of last week's. Either way, it just annoyed me. I'm so over this show. The gang jetted to Vegas for Frankie's birthday. Drama ensued, yadda yadda yadda. It's sad watching this knowing that these are real people. They're all just so vapid and shallow. I can get all the same trashiness with Gossip Girl, plus not feel dirty for watching real people humiliate themselves.

What I didn't watch:

True Blood. Ehhh, it just doesn't sound up my alley. Maybe I'll check it out On Demand if I'm bored someday. Buffy gave me all the vampire storylines I'll ever need.

90210. Seriously? I didn't even make it through the pilot. It's baaaaad.

Mad Men. I know, I know, it's the best show I'm not watching. I've seen it, I've liked it, but it's just not compelling enough to get me to watch every week. It's in my DVD pile.
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Prime-time smackdown: Gossip Girl vs. 90210

It's a battle of who's the richest, trashiest and bitchiest -- Gossip Girl or the new 90210.

But really, it's not even close.

At the urging of someone near and dear to me, I finally tuned in to Gossip Girl and caught the season premiere. I've gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised. It's totally trashy and exists in another reality, but it's so over the top and shot so stylishly. It's like the TV version of Cruel Intentions. And I loved Cruel Intentions. I was instantly won over by the voice of Veronica Mars as the narrator -- Kristen Bell needs to be on TV more. It was pretty easy to get up to speed with the plot points -- Dan and Jenny are the new kids on the scene, the Brandon and Brenda if you will; Chuck wears lime green suits and ascots yet somehow isn't gay; and everyone's slept with everyone else. It's trashy yet doesn't take itself too seriously. There are the requisite Josh Schwartz-infused pop-culture references, and in a shocking twist, the queen bee is a brunette! In my mind, Gossip Girl out-Hills The Hills (Jenny's fashion designer boss was even meaner that Kelly Kutrone). And it's so much less annoying and Spencer-free. Would I watch it again? You bet. It's not a must-list addition yet, but if I'm bored on a Monday, I'll check it out.


The new 90210, however, won't lure me again. It's not just bad, it's boring. From the opening Hills-inspired montage to the generic dialogue (Opening line, "This sucks." Seriously? What teenager would mope about moving from Wichita to Beverly Hills? And living in a mansion?), to the self-reference overload (David Silver's sister? Andrea Zuckerman's daughter? Not to mention Kelly, Brenda and Nat? Doesn't anyone ever move away from Beverly Hills?), it seemed completely unoriginal and watered down. I suppose it's a tad more realistic in that the kids' biggest problems are cheating on a report and making the lacrosse team, but no one tunes in to 90210 for realism. They tune in for over-the-top excess and trashy drama, and what they got was a dull mishmash by what seemed like the freshly scrubbed cast of High School Musical. Also, Annie (the new Brenda) was way, way too skinny and I kept waiting for Tristan Wilds to morph from adopted son and token black guy Dixon into his previous, devastatingly heartbreaking role as student-turned-hitman Michael on The Wire and pop a cap in someone's ass. Jessica Walter as the permantly tipsy, ex-Skinemax actress grandma was the best part of the show. How about retooling the show into a comedy, fire everyone but her, and make her the matriarch of a dysfunctional family a little farther south, like Newport Beach? And name one of the sons Gob. Yeah, I'd watch that. But I digress...

Most of all, 90210 seemed dated. It was fun in the 90s, but that genre has evolved, and like it or not, Gossip Girl is the new paradigm. Blame/credit Laguna Beach and The Hills, but today the wealth, the excesses and the relationship drama are revved to the red line, and 90210 is still puttering around at 35 mph.
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