TV: Top Ten

It's that time of year for top ten lists. I love 'em, you love 'em, hell, in December, everyone with access to a keyboard loves 'em. There are a variety of lists I could create -- best movies, best comics, etc. -- and certainly (well, hopefully) those other lists will be coming in the week ahead, but I'll start with what I know best: my top ten TV shows of the year.

1. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
   Still the smartest, funniest show on the air. And at times, when they seem to be the only ones holding politicians accountable for their egregious lies, simply by letting them hang themselves with their own words, you wonder if it isn't the best news program as well. And for this show, and his shocking, thrilling, mesmerizing tirade on Crossfire last October, Jon Stewart is easily the greatest TV entertainer of the year.



2. Lost
   I surprised myself with this one (just as Lost keeps surprising me). When I thought about it, I realized that while I think The Daily Show is better overall, there is no other show on TV whose next episode I anticipate as eagerly as Lost. Fantastic casting from top to bottom (particularly the stunning newcomer Evangeline Lilly as Kate), stellar writing, a totally captivating mystery (several mysteries, really)... it's just great. Finally, a cult show I don't have to worry about disappearing too soon; firmly in the top ten, ratings-wise, this show's cult seems to be everybody.



3. The Shield
   This is why I'm surprised by Lost, because I'd previously held The Shield to be the best TV drama. (Best non-pay cable drama; I don't get HBO or Showtime, so I can't judge The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, etc.) But Michael Chiklis' Vic Mackie remains the best written and acted character on television, and that's in a cast with nothing but brilliantly written and acted characters, including CCH Pounder as Det. Wyms, Jay Karnes as Dutch, and Walt Goggins as the loathsome Shane. This summer's season proved there's still a hell of a lot of kick left in this show; Tavon's horrifying car accident, and Dutch's murdering of a stray cat, remain the most affecting, chilling sequences on television this year.



4. Arrested Development
   This show has moved into my top sitcom slot this year; while I was hoping the new season could merely match its brilliant debut season, it's actually gotten better. This show trusts the audience to be smart enough to both pick up on subtle gags or throwaway jokes (like the Charlie Brown Christmas theme playing while George Michael sadly walks past a dog lying on top of a red doghouse in the background), and to actually use their memory and recall previous episodes (for example, Tobias' ongoing delusion that he's an understudy for the Blue Man Group isn't explicitly mentioned every episode -- but there's always a smear of blue paint on a wall or piece of furniture to give a laugh to those paying attention). This show's surprise win for Best Comedy at the 2004 Emmys doesn't seem to have helped it in the Nielsens; I wish everyone would watch this unbelievably hilarious show before it succumbs to poor ratings.



5. Scrubs
   Just edged out by Arrested as the funniest sitcom, it's still a tremendous half-hour. Zach Braff, Donald Faison, John C. McGinley, and perhaps my favorite, Neil Flynn as the vengeful Janitor, they're all great, and the writing of course is top-notch, but I want to mention another ingredient to this show's success: the choreography. The physical comedy, the lightning quick verbal exchanges, even the subtle gestures of one actor playing off another, they're all so perfectly timed for maximum comedic effect. There's so much going on for the eyes, this show would almost be as much fun to watch with the sound off.



6. Desperate Housewives
   After Lost, my second favorite new show this year. I wouldn't dare miss an episode; I love Felicity Huffman, I looooove Marcia Cross, and I can't wait to see what embarrassing and probably skin-revealing incident Teri Hatcher will get herself into each week. I'm aware it's just soapy, trashy fun on the level of Melrose Place. (Which I never watched, but judging how much I love Marcia Cross on Housewives, maybe I should've.) But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's pure enjoyment. It does feel weird including it on a list which should be celebrating greatness in TV -- Hill Street Blues, this isn't. But it's my list, and I can do whatever the hell I want with it.



7. South Park
   I balked at including a show in which one episode, mirroring the presidential election, centered on a vote between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. But this year South Park proved it's still as brilliantly satirical and side-splittingly hilarious as it's always been. The destruction of Mel Gibson in "The Passion of the Jew," which aired in the first half of the season, back in March, and the last new episode of this year, "Woodland Critter Christmas," featuring Disney-like forest creatures trying to birth the spawn of Satan, are on par with the best this show has ever offered; sick, biting, hysterical stuff.



8. Veronica Mars
   My third favorite new show of the year. There's an excellent overarching mystery involving the death of Veronica's best friend and her mother's subsequent disappearance, and Kristen Bell is fantastic as the lead character -- smart, cool, cute, vulnerable, funny. Enrico Colantoni lends excellent support as her father -- it's a great change seeing a TV father who's not only not clueless, but every bit as sharp and engaging as his offspring (unless it turns out he's not Veronica's biological father -- more mystery!) -- but the rest of the cast is uneven; I could especially do without "Weevil", the tiniest, most unrealistically threatening "hoodlum" since the Fonz.



9. Alias
   Last season was down a bit from the previous two, but, much like creator J.J. Abrams' new show, Lost, it's still rock-solid entertainment, with thrilling action sequences, shocking, over-the-top plot twists, great acting all around, a real sense of humor about itself, and nail-biting cliffhangers every week. It's my most anticipated mid-season premiere (January 5!), and its pairing with Lost is TV scheduling heaven.



10. Dinner for Five
    The best talk show on TV (The Daily Show, of course, is more than just a talk show), and the only uncensored one, as far as I know, Dinner for Five brings four celebrities together with host Jon Favreau at a different posh restaurant each week, plies them with food and liquor, and lets them go. Favreau occasionally tries to steer the conversation, but with guests like David Cross, Bob Odenkirk, Marilyn Manson, Andy Dick, Vince Vaughn, Kevin Smith, Sarah Silverman, Dom DeLuise, and Will Ferrell, sometimes he just winds them up and stands back. And it never fails to fascinate. The guests are given time to tell elaborate stories, and they often tell stories they wouldn't feel free to tell elsewhere (slamming people they've worked with, for example). They also are free to go off on extended comedic riffs, and to rip on each other as the whim strikes them. For anyone at all interested in show business, this is a can't-miss show. (Except, of course, it's on IFC, which means for most of you it's can't-catch.)

Let's take a look at a few other samples from my regular viewing:

Best Accidental Discovery
While flipping through channels one night, I ran across Cheap Seats on ESPN Classic (good luck for most of the country locating that channel). Hosted by Randy and Jason Sklar, identical twin comedians, this is kind of an MST3K for bad sports shows. The two of them watch old, weird, niche programming from ESPN's vast tape library, like Putt-Putt Tournaments, or Spelling Bees, or the Lumberjack Games, and intersperse it with jokes and skits (featuring such guests as Kerri Kenney, H. Jon Benjamin, or Ed Helms) mocking the action. Very funny, if you can find it.

Best Mini-Series
And indeed, the only mini-series I watched this year: Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars. A tremendous wrap-up to one of the best science fiction programs ever. I'm still hoping the ratings for this event will justify bringing John Crichton, Aeryn Sun, Scorpius, and the rest of the cast back for one more go-around, but I'm not holding my breath. (I'm not counting The 4400 as a mini-series, because, as USA insisted on telling me 17,000 times an hour: it was a "limited" series, not a mini-series. And unprecedented, did they mention unprecedented?? Also, I wound up not liking it all that much.)

Best Show I Never Watch
It's a tie! I really enjoyed the first episode of House, especially star Hugh Laurie's riveting turn as the cantankerous genius doctor (and of course there's Lisa Edelstein, whom I always love), but I've been unable to catch it ever since; it airs opposite Scrubs and Veronica Mars. TiVo can only do so much, Fox! Tonight, Fox is wisely airing two repeats to try to reach a wider audience -- hey, that's me! There's not nearly as much good TV on Mondays, so I'll be able to catch both episodes. I hope Fox will consider making this change permanent. The other show is That '70s Show, which I think is hilarious, but it's on versus Lost and Smallville. At least I can catch it in reruns.

Best Show I Just Kind Of Don't Feel Like Watching
Kevin Hill. I've enjoyed every episode I've watched, but for some reason I tend to let it sit unwatched on my TiVo until it's about to be deleted, and only then do I bother to check it out. And I always like it... but I always let the next episode sit unwatched again. I think I may actually have reached the previously-believed-to-be-boundless limits of my TV-watching capabilities with this show!

Biggest Disappointments
It's a three-way tie! Monk, The Amazing Race, and Joan of Arcadia. I've previously written about my problems with this year's seasons of Monk and TAR, so I'll concentrate on Joan. The problem there is the lack of joy, or fun, or silliness. Everything's gotten so dark and depressing. Joan's best friend dies, the Girardis are being sued by the family of the boy who crippled their son, Grace's mother is an alcoholic, and on and on and on. Didn't this show used to be fun last year? What happened? There are still some light moments, but they're much less frequent, and much clumsier, than last season (and they usually involve Constance Zimmer as ex-nun Lilly; she's a real kick). If I were Joan, I'd trade in her god for a new model. This one's a bummer.

Guiltiest Pleasure
Two and a Half Men. I watched one episode at a friend's house, and was surprised to find it wasn't as awful as I'd always assumed it would be. In fact, it's really very funny. I'm completely hooked on it. I know! What's wrong with me?? I think it's surpassed Everybody Loves Raymond as my 4th favorite sitcom (after the two in my top ten list, and Less Than Perfect, which probably should also be a guilty pleasure, but I can't find it in me to be ashamed of liking a show featuring Patrick Warburton).

Just Kind of There
Smallville has had its moments this year, including a surprisingly good episode in which Clark and Lionel Luthor switched bodies, but the new characters aren't working for me (the Lois Lane actress -- whom I've previously sworn never to name again -- grew on me a little, but she's still more irritating than charming, and Jason is just a warmed-over Whitney), and that whole deal with Lana's tattoo is really lame. Also: The Simpsons. This is really on cruise control. It's generally reliably funny, but the characters don't engage me the way they used to; they've drifted too far from any kind of grounding reality to be really affecting anymore. The show has become primarily sight gags and movie parodies and physical comedy, not the character-based humor that made the show so great. I've been surprised to find this season that if I miss an episode, I'm not that concerned.

Whatever Happened to Must See Thursday?
I'm still watching Joey, although as God is my witness, I couldn't tell you why. And Will & Grace still has its moments. But if I see it, that's fine, and if I don't, that's fine, too. The Apprentice I avoid like the plague, and I think ER was actually cancelled four years ago, but like the undead creature it is, it keeps shambling grotesquely forth.

You Had Me, And Then You Lost Me
Rescue Me and Jack & Bobby. These shows drew me in with their promising debuts, then repelled me with their despicable lead characters. Denis Leary's Tommy on Rescue Me is a lying, cheating, reprehensible thug, who possesses none of the charm of Leary's previous flawed public servant, cop Mike from The Job. And Christine Lahti, who plays the mother on Jack & Bobby is such a shrill, stupid, horrible woman, I couldn't stand watching her beyond the first three episodes. I would include Boston Legal in this category, but I knew before it aired that I would like it at first, then quickly lose interest, same as with any David E. Kelley show.

You Had Me, And Then You Lost Me, And Then You Had Me Again
Both Star Trek: Enterprise and Gilmore Girls have bounced back after their less than wonderful previous seasons. Enterprise's return to self-contained stories rather than last season's year-long Xindi hunt is most welcome; even the three-parter with Brent Spiner felt blessedly brief and to the point. And I have to admit, I'm kind of digging the whole Trip & T'Pol soap opera. But everyone else is such a drag. Maybe the other characters need to get laid, too, to develop some personalities. And Gilmore Girls has succeeded in bringing Luke and Lorelai together as a couple, while not skimping on stories for other characters; I especially enjoyed Jackson's run for, and election as, mayor (or town elder or whatever he's called) of Stars Hollow. The writers need to be careful with Rory, though; she's becoming as self-absorbed and callous as her mother has been prone to be in previous years. (Or, as I described her in an earlier draft: she's kind of becoming a dumb bitch. Am I wrong?)

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And what about you? Did I leave off something you love? Do I love something you hate? Are you disappointed I didn't dump on Sex and the City one last time? Jump in on this one, TV fans.

Potpourri

I already mentioned this elsewhere, but I might as well mention it here too: did anyone else notice the little censorship moment on this week's season premiere of The Simpsons? Toward the end, Homer says, "You're still the best cook in this family," and Marge says, "Oh, B.F.D." Only you couldn't hear the "F".

I replayed the line about a dozen times. It wasn't a TiVo glitch, and it didn't sound like a recording error on the part of the network. Fox deliberately muted that one letter. Has the fear of reprisal from the draconian FCC become so rampant that even the initial of a dirty word has to be censored?

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Speaking of censorship, go read Sars' take on the bullshit uproar over ABC's airing of Saving Private Ryan at Tomato Nation. She has crystallized my thoughts eloquently. Or at least, with far fewer curse words than I would've used. The wrong Powell has been forced out of the Bush administration; it's Colin's son Michael, the FCC Chairman, that really needs to go.

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In case you missed the Championship Game of Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown, and were wondering if Dennis Rodman was still a humongous douchebag: rest assured that he most definitely is.

Early in the game, Rodman threw away a losing hand, cards face-down and in the muck. Tournament director Robert Thompson immediately declared Mekhi Phifer winner of the hand. Rodman then got upset, saying his cards should be shown first. Whether Rodman was even aware that his hand was by far the worse hand or not was hard to tell, but when Thompson correctly told him that by throwing his cards away he had forfeited the hand, Rodman tore off his microphone, said, "I'm not even gonna play," and stormed out of the room.

After the commercial break, he came back and sat down again with the other now visibly uncomfortable celebrities, but when he was later eliminated, he made a point of shaking everyone's hand but Thompson's.

What a little bitch. (As much as a nine-foot-tall man can be a "little" bitch.) If he had owned the deck of cards, he would've taken it and gone home. (And if it was all some crazy ploy to rattle the other competitors -- which I highly doubt, but you never know -- it sure backfired; Rodman was eliminated first.)

My prediction for the game couldn't have been much more wrong. I picked Phifer to lose first, as he was by far the worst player (with the possible exception of Rodman), but his crazy luck from the first game held, and he took the grand prize. He just would not fold! How do you win when you play with crappy cards every hand and never ever fold?

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Of interest tonight: the debut of House, the new medical drama on Fox starring Hugh Laurie. Laurie is absolutely wonderful in everything he's ever been in (from Blackadder to Jeeves & Wooster to -- okay, maybe not Stuart Little), but I fear he might be the only thing worth watching in this show. Even if he is, that's still a darn good reason to watch.

Also tonight, the season premiere of The Amazing Race 6. Last season let me down a bit; after the first couple weeks, there wasn't a single team left I could root for. It's fun to have villains to root against; it's not fun when there are only villains. Hopefully the casting is a little more balanced this time. Either way, it remains the best reality show on the air, bar none. (Take that, Littlest Groom!)

TV: Standing tall on the wings of my dreams

Tonight's Simpsons Treehouse of Horror was an instant classic if only for the fact that it featured the theme song from Perfect Strangers. Ah, Balki Bartokomous, where are you now? Whither Cousin Larry?

On another note, can you believe that was the fifteenth Treehouse of Horror? Man, even The Simpsons are making me feel old now.

Potpourri

I really have no idea what to write today, but since my traffic is up recently, and it only takes one day off to be totally forgotten and drop back down to double digits in hits (yes, I actually worry about that kind of thing, I'm a mess), I'll just write whatever the hell comes to mind.

--I got the first season DVD box sets for both The Simpsons and Futurama yesterday. I hadn't gotten them before because A) I don't think the first season of The Simpsons holds up very well at all, and B) I've seen the first season of Futurama plenty enough in reruns on the Cartoon Network. But that Amazon sale ($15.99 each!) was too much to resist.

--Next up from Amazon: The Complete Peanuts 1953-1954 and Random Zits. I loves my comic strips! Too bad the new Doonesbury isn't out for another couple weeks, or I'd have added that to my order, too.

--Comic strips that don't get collected in books anymore, but should: One Big Happy. Drabble. The Fusco Bros.

--You know what comic strips I don't love?

• Fox Trot. Hate it. Same structure every damn strip: a line in panel one gets repeated in panel four, either by a different character or in a different context. So uninventive and predictable.
• Get Fuzzy. Having the dog actually say "Ha! Ha! Ha!" doesn't make the punchlines any funnier. In fact, they're not funny at all.
• Non Sequitur. Seriously, does anybody like that crap?

--If I had a regular newspaper subscription, I would revive the Baltimore City Paper's "Funny Paper" column on this blog every Friday. For those of you who have never run across it online, it was a weekly critique of the Baltimore Sun's daily comic strips -- a very harsh and hilariously meticulous critique. Sample from the last time the column ran (last February):

MOMMA: Wednesday, Momma mistakes a door-to-door scythe, cassock, and sandals salesman for the Grim Reaper. Sandals? The Grim Reaper isn't a fuckin' hippie!

There are tons of columns in the archives, go check 'em out. And maybe I'll start getting my local paper, just to have a guaranteed post once a week. As opposed to this rambling mess today.

TV: Family Guy

I've always liked Family Guy, and have tended to defend it from those who claim it's just a ripoff of The Simpsons.

But last night on the Cartoon Network, I watched an episode of Family Guy that ripped off the following Simpsons episodes:

--the soap box derby episode

--the Bart is a Boy Scout episode

--the Homer thinks Bart is gay episode

--the Marge has a gambling problem episode

--the Indian casino episode

--the Bart and Homer get lost in the woods episode

--the Homer has a vision episode

...and probably a few others I didn't catch. In one show!

Some of them are blatant (the soap box race, the gambling), some are maybe stretching the comparison (Homer thinks Bart is gay), but still. It's like they decided to steal every single episode of The Simpsons at once. I'm amazed there wasn't a monorail. Or a Planet of the Apes musical.

It would be funny to think they intentionally stole from as many Simpsons episodes as possible just as a jab at the people who had always accused them of doing so, but that's probably giving them too much credit.

MOVIES: The Butterfly Effect

I just finished watching the DVD of The Butterfly Effect and... wow. That was interesting. I mean, don't get me wrong: it's a train wreck. It is definitely a failure. But it fails in such uniquely spectacular and fascinating ways, that I can't help but admire it a little.

First things first: I'll admit, Ashton Kutcher isn't as bad as I thought he'd be. I actually like Kutcher on That '70s Show. I've never been an Ashton basher. (Except for that Punk'd crap he does on MTV. That is some seriously lame shit.) I think he can be very funny. I just didn't think he'd be able to pull off a dramatic role. And... he doesn't, exactly, but like I said, he's not as bad as I thought.

Where the film goes wrong, and keeps going wrong, over and over again, is in the relentlessly brutal torture of its characters. The plot, as you know, is a remake of the "Stupid bug! You go squish now!" episode of The Simpsons... well, not really, but it might as well be. Kutcher, like Homer, finds a way to travel into the past, but every change he makes in the hopes of making the future better actually makes it exponentially worse. Ned Flanders never places the Earth under his totalitarian rule, but if the movie had been ten minutes longer, he might very well have.

Here are the horrible things that happen to Kutcher's character Evan before he even goes back in time. (Spoilers, natch.) Evan suffers from a series of blackouts. His father has been locked away in a loony bin. The girl he loves (Kayley) is forced to perform sexual acts with him on camera by Kayley's alcoholic father -- when they're only seven years old. (Eric Stoltz gives an amazingly creepy performance as the father, by the way.) The girl's brother Tommy watches them, and it turns him into a psychopath. Evan finally gets to meet his dad -- who then tries to murder him. Evan, Kayley, Tommy, and Evan's best friend Lenny accidentally blow up a woman and her baby girl. Yes, I said blow up. Tommy puts Evan's dog in a sack and sets it on fire. Lenny is driven into near-catatonia by these events. Evan's mother moves them out of town, leaving Kayley to fend for herself against her lunatic father and brother. And, to top it all off, when Evan seeks out Kayley again after a seven-year absence, he drives her to commit suicide.

Yeah, and that's just an appetizer. Perhaps you begin to see how comically over the top this film is determined to go.

Evan discovers that by reading the journals he kept growing up, he can project himself back in time -- it turns out the blackouts were during periods of time travel. If he concentrates on a journal entry concerning one of those blackouts, he goes back into his body at that time, and is then able to influence the events that happened during his blackouts. (Many more spoilers ahead.) First time he tries to do so, it seems everything is just peachy dandy. He's turned into a frat boy douchebag for some reason, but he and Kayley are happily in love. Then Tommy shows up and tries to kill Evan, but Evan kills him instead. Cut to: the slammer! Evan's doing hard time for murder. And for murder, you don't go to white collar resort prison. You go to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. Yes, that's right, on his first night in the joint, Evan gets introduced to the wonders of prison rape. Ouchie.

Well, Evan thinks he can fix everything, and he really really means it, this time for sure. He goes back in time again, and tries to keep Tommy from killing his dog, but through a whimsical miscommunication, he accidentally convinces Lenny to murder Tommy. Oopsie! Back in the future, Lenny is strapped to a bed in the loony bin, and Kayley is a scar-faced junkie whore. Let's try that again: Evan goes back in time to keep the woman and her baby daughter from getting blown up, and he's successful! Back in the future, everyone is happy and healthy -- even Tommy has turned to the Lord and changed his evil ways. Small hitch: the explosion blew off Evan's arms. Dagnabbit! Pesky time travel! Evan sees how much better off everyone else is, though, and decides to take one for the team and stay with this timeline. Then he finds out his mother is dying of cancer. To the Wayback Machine! This time Evan figures he'll get rid of the explosive before it can ever be used. Funny thing, though, little monkey wrench in the plan: he accidentally blows up Kayley instead. Butterfingers!

This time, back in the future, Evan's in the loony bin himself. He's got one chance left to put everything back in order, and he does so by going back to when he and Kayley first met, and telling her he will kill her if she ever speaks to him again. Nice and subtle, there, chief. But it works! Evan returns to the future, and by never having known him, Kayley and Tommy turn out just fine. It's a wonderful life!

The DVD has an extra little kick in the ass that I love. It ratchets up this unrelenting torture-fest into whole new levels of agony. There's the theatrical ending -- in which, eight years further down the line, Evan and Kayley pass each other on the street, but keep on going. There are two alternate takes of that scene -- one in which Evan turns to follow Kayley, and one in which Kayley and Evan stop and have a sweet little meeting. But then there's the director's cut. Oh ho ho, the director's cut goes an entirely different and jaw-droppingly sadistic route. On Evan's last trip to the past, instead of going back to his first meeting with Kayley, he goes all the way back to his birth. At the hospital, while still in his mother's womb, he gains his entire lifetime of knowledge. And he decides his best option is to (I have to italicize and boldface this) strangle himself to death with his own umbilical cord. I swear on my life that I am not making this up. The best option for everyone else in his life to have a happy ending is for him to commit prenatal suicide. Gee, I wonder why the preview audiences didn't embrace that ending?

It's an awful movie, but it's so original in its awfulness. Each new horrible wrinkle in time leaves you agog in disbelief. "He's got no frickin' arms?? Oh, come on!!" It actually began reminding me of Showgirls a little bit as it went on, just a total misfire of epic proportions. The very bad things stop coming across as very bad, but rather very funny. It's just ludicrous after a while. You just have to start laughing. And the movie (like Showgirls) is so committed to its badness. The fact that nobody who made this movie is aware of its badness makes it all the funnier. But the thing is, you can't look away! You just have to watch in gleeful awe at its audacious awfulness.

Would I recommend it? It depends on how much you like bad movies. If you made it through the entirety of both House of the Dead and House of 1000 Corpses, or, for that matter, all of Showgirls, then you might get some weird form of entertainment out of this film, like I did. If you want a good time travel movie, you're better off with Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure than this thing. And if you want a good Ashton Kutcher movie... well, good luck.

POTPOURRI

TV: What The Amazing Race is lacking in teams to root for this year, it's more than making up for in teams to hate, which is just as fun. Charla and Mirna are on the top of my list: little person Charla for constantly insisting how strong and independent she is, then manipulating others into feeling sorry for her and helping her, and complaining when they don't, and Mirna for being such a bloody victim, such a martyr. Everything that goes wrong happens because other people are out to get her, because something is being done to her, as opposed to simply resulting from her own weakness and incompetence. "Now we're lost, because we trusted somebody," she said in last night's episode. No, you're lost because you were driving the lead car and you were stupid enough to miss the turn. How is that the fault of the car following you, whose driver did make the right turn? Answer: it's NOT! Ya freak.

Also, I'm sick to death of Mirna yelling at her cousin, "Come on Charla, this is a race, Charla, hurry up, Charla!" She is hurrying! Her legs are half the length of yours, you dumbass!

Then there's Chip and Kim. Chip started out seeming like such a sweetheart, but turned into a snake in the second episode. He sabotaged Kami and Karli by jumping into their cab and refusing to get out until another cab arrived for his team. And now he's got the nerve to trash talk about them, as though they were at fault. What a jackass.

And the pizza brothers, Marshall and Lance: at first look, I hoped they would be like the first season's Kevin and Drew, wise-cracking fun-lovers. Instead, they make offensive remarks about women drivers and the native people: "Useless foreigners!" Check your passport, chump: you're the foreigner, and your inability to communicate with the locals doesn't make them useless.

I just hate so many of these people. Which means the Amazing Race's casting directors have done their job again! Way to go!

COMICS: All the foofaraw over Identity Crisis has almost made me want to pick it up. Almost. Because just when I think it sounds interesting or controversial enough for me to check out, I remember, Oh yeah, I couldn't care less about the Elongated Man. Killing off his wife is like killing off Dr. Marvin Monroe on The Simpsons: nobody cared about him, nobody missed him, and after enough time had passed, he came back from the dead anyway. (Or as was said of Monty Burns: "His condition was upgraded to 'alive'.")

BOOKS: I actually will have a proper Books post to make later tonight, but it might be fairly late, since tonight is trivia night at the local sports bar. And I can't miss that. One minute before midnight is still keeping to the schedule!

TV AGAIN: Don't forget to tune into Denis Leary's firefighter comedy/drama Rescue Me on FX tonight. Even if you're not otherwise inclined to watch a Denis Leary show, just think of FX's record with original programming so far: The Shield, Nip/Tuck, and, in my opinion, the best new show of 2003 (though sadly prematurely cancelled), Lucky. I think that puts the chances for Rescue Me being a keeper pretty high, don't you?