Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Holding out for a hero

I'm still having trouble getting into "American Idol" this year. I said over the summer that CBS' "Rock Star" (which encouraged originality, musicianship and seasoned performers) was everything I'd always pretended that "Idol" was. Having witnessed the real thing (even if it was only covering one genre), it's a lot harder to enjoy I Can't Believe It's Not Great Music! Mandisa was easily the best last night, and beyond that, you're better off reading the comments of my friend Dan, who used to do snarky recaps for Zap2it.com, and now writes them for his blog.

The only other show I've gotten to so far was "House," which once again reminded me I shouldn't have married a hospital administrator if I wanted to watch medical shows in peace. Every thirty seconds or so, Marian was throwing her hands up and loudly protesting whatever House was doing to poor Greg Grunberg and his dead wife. Good episode with a formula-breaking case. And was I the only one who watched that last scene and immediately thought, "On March 7, James Wilson was asked to leave his place of residence. That request came from his wife."? Okay, only me? Fine. Be that way.

I'll probably hit "Scrubs," "Race" and "Shield" tomorrow. Today's "Sopranos" story: David Chase talks about the music.

4 comments:

Marc said...

Unrelated to the shows mentioned above (except that one airs against American Idol, what's your take on ABC's SONS & DAUGHTERS and FOX's FREE RIDE?

Is this a case of network comedies trying to hard to mimic the wackiness of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT but losing that specialness because they're playing to too general an audience?

Alan Sepinwall said...

I'm not crazy about either one. There's some "Arrested" influence to both, but also from "Curb Your Enthusiasm," since both are largely improvised. Watching them, I'm reminded how hard it is to pull off what "Curb" does so well. (Even "Curb" couldn't do it for most of last season.) Just like that Bravo show, "Significant Others," that had the lead from "Sons & Daughters," I keep watching these shows and seeing situations that could be funny if someone had actually sat in a writer's room for a while and made them work on the page.

Marc said...

Thanks for the insight, Alan.

Tosy And Cosh said...

I was expecting House himself to sarcastically recite those lines actually.