New adventures in television

The new TV season has kicked off. I have, somewhat unsurprisingly, been watching things.

Photo by missmac

The joy of new shows is a little dulled as my two faves - LOST and 30 Rock, are yet to return. Nonetheless, I've got literally dozens of thoughts about the things I have seen! Huzzah!


Fringe

Given my LOST addiction it's hardly surprising I'd give the new JJ show a spin. And I like it! It's quite a nice counterpoint to the 'watch from episode one or be lost in the mysterious mists of madness' format that LOST does so well. While Fringe has an underlying plot, episodes seem pretty self-contained. It's formulaic but that doesn't bother me because it's a lot of fun. When your main cast includes a mad scientist I'm pretty much on board.
Sure, each episode follows a formula - FBI agent and her kooks investigate weird happening and mad scientist dredges up his past to solve it - it tends to involve LSD and ESP along the way.
A fun sci-fi romp.

Gossip Girl

As a dude, I know I'm not supposed to enjoy this show, and am certainly not intended to publicise this enjoyment. But my affection for it stems from the same part of my brain that has me visiting celebrity trash blogs. This show is like The OC but with the sunshine stripped out and replaced with New York cynicism. All the characters are awful, spoiled victims of prisons forged out of their repeatedly poor choices. I love watching them fail. The character Chuck Bass, who is basically the moustache-twirling villain in pastel suits, is amazing.

Entourage

I've always dug Entourage. The fifth season, following the fallout of Vinnie's disastrous movie and E's conflicted attempts to branch out, is so far a lot funner than last season. While the serpentine bullshit of Hollywood is still screwing with the guy's lives, there's a lot of fun happening as well. Johnny Drama continues to be my favourite character on anything.

Baby Mama

So, this is a movie, but I'm going to write about it anyway. Tina Fey is awesome. I first saw her on SNL's Weekend Update, loved the first film she wrote Mean Girls and am now obsessed with her show 30 Rock. While she's a great writer and a good comedic actor in her won right, the stuff she makes is so awesome because she surrounds herself with other people who are also full of awesome.
This film sees Tina Fey as a career woman who decides late in the game to have a baby, and is forced to turn to redneck crazy person Amy Poehler to act as a surrogate mother.
It's great to see a movie starring two female leads and doesn't fall on all the old bullshit of runaway brides and dependence on men.
More importantly, it's really, really funny.