Desperate Comeback, eh

Coming up with this list of reviews, I come to figure, I watch way too much tv!, it's been over a week, and I've reviewed lots of shows now, and there are more still to come!, Amazing Race, Alias, Smallville, Scrubs, Saturday Night Live, and those are the ones I'm thinking of right now. But tonight marks the return of the biggest hit of last season and the beginning and at mid-season:

Desperate Housewives.
This show is WAY overrated!, it's an interesting show, with intreaguing story lines, but it's just now as good as everyone makes it out to be, it's a very good thing this show didn't win the Emmy that it didn't deserve (one that Arrested truly deserved in its first year last year). Based on this episode, this is not a great show, it made a mockery of a funeral, forged paternity results (with no sample from the father btw), psycho kids, and uncovered a new "mystery" of a woman we barely know, who cares!. But it looks like it's actually trying to be the "comedy" it says it is, because if you compare last season's first episodes to this one, those were more dramatic, this one was just "trying" to be funny.

My Grade: B-

Grey's Anatomy.
And this is a medical show!, what ER was and is not anymore, a show about the doctors in a hospital, not the cases they tend to that particular week, no wonder this show was the biggest hit of the mid-season. A show about characters, what LOST excels at, what Scrubs excels at, what even HOUSE excels at (even though it's more of a procedural than this show), and what this drama truly excels at, characters. In the aftermath of last season's cliffhanger, Meredith starts going through hell now that she knows Dr. Shepard is married, Christina is still pregnant and now her friends know who she's been with, Alex & Izzy are starting to get sparks between them, and George is continuing to be a good guy. All in all, it's nice to be back with the gang in Seattle.

My Grade: B+

Somebody FIRE "HIM" now!

And we continue the "Premiere" week for this tv season (although there are still several shows to debut), with the series premire of one show, and season premiere of 2 others. First the new then the old:

Everybody Hates Chris.
Okay, so this show is being billed as one of the best critically acclaimed comedy shows this year, and I can see where the critics are coming from, not entirely sure it's THE BEST new comedy (that still stands with My Name Is Earl), but it's quite enjoyable. Based on the real life teenage years of comedian Chris Rock, this show is querky, and actually funny. The main plot line is like this: A black family moves from one beat down neighborhood to another higher in "class" because the father just got a raise (without knowing that their new neighborhood will become a gangster's turf in the near future), they've got 3 kids, Chris, 13, and his younger (although he looks older) brother and sister. Chris is in charge of his younger siblings while their parents work, the dad works overnight shifts while the mom during the day, and Chris just got transfered to an 'all-white' highschool, which should make for some great and interesting funny stuff to come!. But like i said earlier, I don't get how this show is THE BEST, it's not funny all the time, it just makes me feel like i could catch it if and when i come about it and have a good time.

My Grade: B

Joey.
The "friend" is back, and like I thought, he wasn't missed. This show is turning into a bore of predictability as each episode comes, and this season premiere was no different, especially because NBC decided to promote the "Joey becomes a movie star" story line, when that moment happend exactly at the last 10 minutes of the 1 hour episode!. So yeah, Joey lost his job at "Deep Powder" and is now doing a Jerry Bruckhaimer movie, it was such a huge turnaround that it was so unbelievable that you can't continue to like this show. Unlike "Chris", i wouldn't want to stumble upon this show later on when I have nothing to do on a Thursday night (especially this year's Thursday night lineup).

My Grade: C

The Apprentice.
As the title of this post says, will somebody please "FIRE HIM" already!, Donald Trump is just plain pathetic this time around, battle of the sexes again!, running through a golf field to his helicopter to win a prize, the suckiest rewards ever (dinner at the boring Friars Club), and tasks that have no purpose whatsoever, an excercise class in a Bally's Gym! what's THAT have to do with realestate!. It looks like he's just trying to do favors for his corporate buddies to have air time on his show. Unlike Martha Stewart's version, where she gives out tasks that actually connect to her business and what her apprentice will actually be workin at.

My Grade: C+

Other Highlights of Thursday September 22, 2005:

Survivor Guatemala: This season proves that the challenge producer really wants to drain the contestants out of what little energy they have left in their bodies, the best thing of all is that we're not seeing repeat challenges like we did before, these are brand new and way more interesting and hard than before, which makes for great tv! In this second episode the Nakum tribe won both challenges (reward was for fishing gear) and Yaxha ended up voting Morgan out (the magician's assistant) without her having a slightest clue of what was to happen. This continues to be a good series, and a good season for that.

The O.C.: Okay, so i said i would stop watching this show, but i'm just a sucker for bad television! I found out something about this show that really intregued me, what I like are the main characters, and the writers of this show really don't know how to make recurring characters interesting, first it was Oliver the annoying "17 year old", then it was Rebeca the long lost college love of Sandy's, now it's Kirsten's rehab buddy and the new Dean at the school, are these characters annoying or what, the Dean has NO REASON for hating on the gang, and I don't reckon how it is that he can actually expell a student from a school for no particular reason whatsoever, and the rehab lady is COOKOO!, even Jimmy got annoying with his stealing loads of money again, good thing he's gone for good this time, and that Kirsten came to her wacky senses (after a really stupid plot of her being an "alcoholic") and came back home to Sandy and the kids. I'll continue watching, but it's hanging by a thread!

Lost on a Martha Invasion

Ok, so it is finally September 21st, 2005. The date waited for since May 26th. The season premiere of my favorite drama show on tv right now, and a couple of debuts from other anticipated new series. Lets start off with the best:

LOST.
We are in this place where a guy turns on a record player, starts listening to 80's music, everything looks like it's the 80's, the clothes, the furniture, the design of the place. This guy gets up, prepares himself some food, excercises a bit in a quite dated stationary bicycle, jumps in the shower, he's changing into his clothes and injects himself some liquid substance in his arm, and BOOM, something explodes outside, he goes to look through several telescope-looking contraptions, and sees a burning light at the end of what appears to be a tunnel, he quickly puts on a jacket that seems to be of a uniform to some company. It's a series of mirrors that look out through an entrance way, we follow, and at the end of the tunnel... Jack Shepard & John Locke are looking into the hatch!.... boom.... LOST..... WOW, was that unexpected or what!, i really thought that guy was gonna be Robert (the french woman's dead husband) and that this was a flashback to when these people first arrived on the island. But boy was I wrong! Believe me, many people will be disappointed by what they saw here, but I just can't fight it, I loved it, I know this has to be just another episode in the series, but we did get a huge answer, what is the HATCH!, what's down the HATCH, but now there are other things to think about, like what is that guy who was running up the stairs in the stadium with Jack in his flashback doing IN the hatch (he's the guy from the beginning), and why is he holding Locke hostage, by the way.... where's Kate??? she was taken first!!! This episode is just the first in discovering what things are going to happen throughout this season, and what consequences the events of last season's finale will have, like, where's the raft?, why did Shannon see Walt in the forest mumbling like those whispers Sayid & Sawyer heard last year?, and I can't wait to find out, but all in it's due time! By the way, liked how they showed Jack actually believing in miracles in his flashback to when he "fixes" Sarah, his future wife, from being paralyzed, right after he dissed Locke about the mysteries of the Island.

Season Premiere Grade: A

Invasion.
Viewer discretion is advised. Due to the recent "hurricanes" hitting the US, this show couldn't have come at a better time!... jejeje.... Anyways, this new mystery drama centers around an "Invasion" of what?, we don't know, that comes ashore with the waters of a hurricane that hits the Florida coast. These "things" are orangy-yellow with light. The main characters are this messed up family, this guy has 2 kids with his ex-wife, he now lives with his new wife and her brother, and the ex-wife is now living/married to the town sheriff. While the hurricane comes in, the little girl wanders off (go figure) to look for her missing cat, her dad goes out to find her and when he gets her she just saw a bunch of lights come down and go into the water of the lake/river. The next morning they find the body of the mom on top of some bushes in the lake/river, naked, lying down. The sheriff goes and gets her, and looks like he knows what happened to her. Meanwhile the brother finds some bones in the water and asks his brother-in-law (the dad) to go with him to find more stuff and while looking around they see the light in the water, he tries to check it out and gets sucked in by this "thing". When they go to the doctor (who happens to be the ex-wife) they say it was a crocodile, but she appears to know that it could not be that. At the end, the sherif tells asks her if she feels strange, that it is normal to feel that way in the beginning, and that all will be better later on. Wha! He's in on it?, this is weird, but it got me interested at least to find out what happens next.

My Grade: B

The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.
For a spin-off, this show really looks like a rip-off. If you have seen the original Apprentice, you will find this is the exact same thing but with a company you actually know what it does, and with a "boss" that is as creepy as she is interesting. I mean, she just got out of jail for unfair trade in the market! That's a harsh thing to go through!. Anyways, I wasn't really interested in watching this show because the original Apprentice has been lagging for the last 2 seasons, but I wanted to tune in the moment i heard that a girl from Tijuana, Mexico (my home town, woohoo!) is one of the contestants!!!, and was i relieved that she wasn't the first to go, and acutally had some good points of view in the "conference room"! So for their first task, the contestants had to divide themselves into two teams, and they did one of the worst things that they could've done, they divided into the "creative" ones and the "corporate" ones, that's a huge clash of identities right there!, everyone will want to be either the most creative of the creatives, or the most corporate of the corporates, big no-no. Anyways, they had to update a children's book to make it more fitting with today's culture. And like in the 3rd Apprentice of booksmarts vs. streetsmarts, the underdog won, the creative team lost in the creative task, and the project manager of that team "just does not fit in.... (awkward silence)... goodbye", yup, that's Martha's 'catchphrase'. At first when you read it, it sounds stupid, but when you actually hear it from Martha's mouth it's chilling, the tone that woman has to say things she doesn't like is creepy!, I'm interested in how this thing works out, but I just don't like that it's an exact clone of the other show.

My Grade: B

Other Hightlights of September 21, 2005:

None!... jejeje.... no other good shows on tonight, that will come next week when Veronica Mars returns!

My Name is BTO, and i'm a tv-aholic...

Continuing with the beginning of the new season, Tuesday comes in with a new comedy series on NBC.

My Name Is Earl.
This series continues the "single camera" string of comedies that have popped up and have really revolutionized situation comedy on network television. And this show is no exception, no lagh track, great script, truly funny show. The basic premise of this show is simple, Earl Hickey is a redneck that's never really given a damn about anything he does, he's a liar, a thief, and a recent winner of the scratcher lottery, $100,000!, but karma has it's way of paying it back, so he gets hit by a car and loses his ticket, so now he thinks that he's gotta right every wrong he's done in his life, starting by helping out the guy he teased the most in grade school. He tracks him down, finds out he's gay, then after a few second thoughts, decides to help him get a date. All in a day's good work. Now to right his over 100 wrongs he's written on his "list". This show Looks promising, especially being paired with "The Office" and hopefully will make a good companion to "Scrubs" in the near future.

My Grade: B+

The Office.
It is the beginning of the second season of this British import, and, as the original, it follows an office workspace for a paper company, with an offbeat boss, the sales guy who's secretly in love with the receptionist who's been engaged for years now. And tonight brought us the annual "Dundies", the office awards that nobody cares about but boss Michael loves to shove in his employees faces. What is funny in this show is the awkwardness of Michael, and the "who gives a fuck" attitude of the employees. Good return and lets hope this show survives to see how this turns out.

Season Premiere Grade: B+

Other Highlights of Tuesday September 20th, 2005:

Gilmore Girls: It's now into the season and the show is progressing like it should. Rory is finding it boring to NOT GO to college, her grandparents are starting to not like the idea of Rory doing nothing and talking to the 'help', and Luke & Lorelai continue planning how they're gonna live when they get married. All is going well (drama wise) in Stars Hallow, especially now that Rory knows her mom & Luke are engaged and Lorelai didn't even bother to tell her, it hurts doesn't it!

Big Brother 6: The big finale! who would vote for who? It was an interesting reunion of the past houseguests and one of the best finales, with the greatest quote that everyone wanted to say but thought we'd never get to hear in the actual show, but Howie had to deliver by saying "I can't vote for America's favorites Kaysay & Janelle, I'm stuck voting for America's worst Maggie & Ivette", wait, did he just say that! Either way, the "friendship" solidified themselves as the suckiest players of a reality show ever, making a "dumb blonde" actually likable! At the end, Maggie emerged as the deserving winner of the two, and you could clearly see the face of disappointment and sadness in Ivette when she came out of the house, priceless. Overall Grade for Season 6: B+

Rock Star INXS: And the winner is? Everything went on as planned, MiG was not right for their band INXS, so he was the first to go. Then the band got up and played a song with each of the final TWO, first Marty, then J.D., but you could clearly see that they gave the better suited song to J.D. and that, at the end, J.D. Fortune would be the new lead singer of INXS. Congrats to them, we'll be looking forward to their new Album due in November, and anxiously awaiting word of what Marty will do, he should take up the House Band as his own and rock this town!

My TV is back and it's quite welcome!

So it was the first night of the new television season with the premieres of the Monday night shows for NBC, CBS & FOX!.... Lets start off with the best comedy on television right now and its new companion on FOX:

Arrested Development.

Right of the bat, this episode really showed that the Emmys got it completely wrong this year, it showed how great this show has become, with punch lines here and there, in-jokes gallore, I was just rolling on my back laughing so hard i couldn't stand it. The season premiere starts a few months where the season finale left off, George Bluth Sr. is still on the run after his twin brother Oscar got imprisoned by mistake, Tobias ran away to Reno with George Sr.'s old assistant Kitty. Michael finds out about Oscar and goes to Reno to find his father, who now hides as a member of the "Blue Man Group" instead of Tobias. George Michael and Maybe are still feeling awkward after kissing (they still don't say that they're not really cousins), and Lindsay wants Tobias back just because he can't have him anymore. Meanwhile Gob thinks his father is looking for him, but instead it's his own son "STEVE HOLT!" who's looking for him, and he actually finds out that it's his son and runs away like the coward he is. All of this while trying to go to a cabin in the woods that got towed by the one and only George Bluth Sr. Now tell me, is this show not awkwardly funny! Welcome back and please.... GET ARRESTED!

Season Premiere Grade: A

Kitchen Confidential.

From executive producer Darren Starr (Sex and the City & my personal favorite Grosse Point) comes this awkwardly funny restaurant show that is actually what "The Restaurant" should have been, something entertaining to watch and a show where the head chef of a restaurant is someone you can like and enjoy. This show, shot in single camera, as it's Arrested lead in, is about a new New York restaurant that hires Jack Bourdain (played by Alias & Jack & Bobby's Bradley Cooper), who's a has-been recovering adict chef, he gathers his clan of chefs and kitchen aids, and needs to handle his personal life together with his professional life now that he's the boss. The opening is a success, if only because a reviewer liked the food, because the chaos of a severed finger made the night a living hell, and now it's time to see what the characters in the kitchen have to offer, and to see if Jack will be good or go back to his bad ways.

My Grade: B+

Medium.

After the surprise win from Patricia Arquette this Sunday at the Emmys, I really wanted to see this premiere to remember why she could've won, and yea, there aren't that many good actresses in Drama these days (or even lead female characters for that matter), so I guess she could very easily squeeze in there as the winner. But she still doesn't seem like an Emmy-worthy actress, don't get me wrong, i like the character, the every-mom, the way mothers and wives really are at home (without the talking to the dead thing) and the show is a good portrayer of a normal family life. In this particular episode we get to see the second part of the story that started in the season finale with the sperm-donar killer of several girls. For my liking this wasn't really the best episode in the first season, so it was just a so-so episode to begin the second one, because the family thing and an actual case to start to follow started here, it's not a normal 'Medium' episode. But i'll try to keep watching to see what lies ahead for this relatively new and good show.

Season Premiere Grade: B-

Other Highlights of Monday September 19, 2005:

Prison Break: The story evolves as the warden is pressured by the feds to transfer Michael to another prison, after they found out he's Lincoln's brother. Michael found a way to get out and test the reaction of the guards to the 'escape', while having an aliby by being in the Warden's office with permission. And the mystery thickens with Lincoln's girlfriend, Veronica, getting to bigger dead ends in regards to the tape that supposedly proves Lincoln's guilt.

How I Met Your Mother: This new show is good, it feels like an exageration actingwise, but the characters look interesting and fun. It's about this guy, Ted, who is telling his kids about how he met their mother back in 2005, the first episode shows how he meets this girl and does many things to get to kiss her, but ends up not doing it because he missed "the signal". But the last scene is the one that got me more interested, when he tells his future kids that's how he met their aunt!, what!?!?!?, i guess we'll see how all of this works out throughout the series. My Grade B+

Two and a Half Men: This show returns and shows that the traditional sitcom isn't dead, yet. Jake (the kid) gets more and more hillarious as the years pass, and there is only more funny stuff to come from him now that he's in his pre-teen years! Great beginning to a season that promises to make this show a standout hit that "Raymond" was. Season Premiere Grade: A-

The emmy's, the WTF awards of 2005

Ok, so i just finished watching the awards show that is all about TV, coincidentally, I'm all about TV too, so I had to watch!. And was this a weird show or what!

So, awards shows are known for being biased, being rigged, fake. And tonight was no exception, except that the "Academy" went a totally different way than expected. Sure this year was all about the "Desperate Housewives", they were expected to win in all categories that they were nominated for in the "comedy" categories, which I still think is cheating. But things didn't come out as expected. But not in a good way.

In the comedy categories, expected winners Jeremy Piven of "Entourage" or Jeffrey Tambor of "Arrested Development" for Supporting Actor lost to eternal winner Brad Garrett of "Everybody Loves Raymond" for yet another time (leaving Peter Boyle the only "Raymond-ite" without an Emmy. Expected winner Jessica Walter of "Arrested Development" also lost to the Raymond-ite Doris Roberts, making it feel like a farewell emmy's show for "Everybody Loves Raymond". Then came the lead acting categories and the expected winners Jason Bateman of "Arrested Development" or Zach Braff of "Scrubs", even Ray Romano was expected after the supporting acting wins, all lost to Tony Shaloub of "Monk"! what the... again?! who even watches that show!, as for what i remember this season of Monk was critiqued as the worst! Then in the actress category, where the Desperate Housewives Marcia Cross & Teri Hatcher were thought as the leaders were beat by the other Housewife nominated Felicity Huffman!. Directing went to "Housewives" as expected, but the writing category is the only good thing about the comedy wins, for "Arrested Development", but how can the best written show not win best Comedy Series! I was sayin that lookin at the awkward wins of the night the "Housewives" wouldn't even win the Series award (which i didn't mind, if it meant Arrested Development or Scrubs won), but that just came back to the beginning, with "Everybody Loves Raymond" winning Best Comedy Series on it's 9th and final year.

Then comes the Drama. As supporting actors are concerned, one of the LOST boys (Naveen Andrews or Terry O'Quinn) or even Alan Alda of "The West Wing" were the leaders, supporting actress CCH Pounder of "The Shield" was the frontrunner in her category, but lo-and-behold Captain Kirk and Blythe Danner won for "Boston Legal" and "Huff" respectively. Over on the writing & directing portion we got better results, with the writer of HOUSE, M.D. and the Director/Creator of LOST J.J. Abrams winning in their categories. But then came the lead acting categories and again, what the.... James Spader won again for his role in "Boston Legal" leaving big contenders Ian McShane (Deadwood) and Hugh Laurie (House M.D.) in the dust, and the surprise of the night with Patricia Arquette of "Medium" winning over Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order S.V.U.) or Glenn Close (The Shield). Then came the "There is something good in this show" award for LOST as the Best Dramatic Series.

As of the rest of the show.... It was aaight, the "Emmy Idol" thing was way too stupid though, but Ellen did her thing, Jon Stewart won as he should, and the movie-miniseries categories are just as boring as ever!, Another year of Emmy stupidity, we'll see what comes next year when all those categories in the Comedy section are available now that "Raymond" is off the air.

Also of note from Friday September 16, 2005:

Big Brother 6: Damn it Janelle! why'd you lose!, now we have a simpathetic Ivette choosing "frienship" over money, who now has a better chance at winning the game over Maggie. We'll see who wins this tuesday!

Threshold: Ok, so this is a new show, but believe me, it did not deserve a full review, cuz, basically, it was crap! It's being billed as a LOST wannabe, but it's not nearly as interesting, the acting is awful, and the premise looks more like it could be ONE episode of C.S.I. instead of a whole series. It was interesting at first, but it is just way too out there, borderline stupid. Now I get why critics were only screened 30 minutes of this show before, they were the only good 30 minutes of the 2 hour premiere. My Grade: C-

Surviving Guatemala

And the Fall 2005 TV season continues, with the debut of the 11th season of Survivor on CBS, this time it's in Guatemala, and this time 2 former players are getting a second chance, not that bad though, because these were the two in the ever-losing Ulong tribe of last season's PALAU edition: Bobby Jon & Stephanie, who are now each a part of one of the new Mayan themed tribes.

It's cool that they chose one of the greatest cultures as a backdrop of this season, especially the great Mayas, who, along with the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico (my home country) and a greater part of Central America, lived in the forests of Guatemala. And boy are there forests! and lakes, and monkeys, and crocodiles, and killer branches! This Survivor is starting off in a harsh way for the castaways, their first challenge was for a reward, the winner would get the better camp (in the middle of ancient Mayan ruins) and fire for their camp, the challenge: an 11 mile hike through the forest with only a compass and directions. Both teams took over 24 hrs. to get to the site, with one team (the winning team, the Nakum tribe) almost losing the power of all their male contestants, which included the returning Bobby Jon. The players were innundated with nausea, vomit, dehydration, cuts, bruises, torn muscle, that they ended up losing the most important competition, the famous 'immunity challenge'. Thus the other tribe, Yaxha, in which Stephanie finally won an immunity competition, went back to camp, and the Nakum's voted out the old guy who tore his muscle and couldn't even move his arm.

This is starting off hard, and with the promise of extreme heat, humidity, and NO beach, it's gonna make for an interesting Survivor.

Season Premiere Grade: B+

Other highlights of Wed-Thur September 14-15, 2005:

Still haven't watched the HOUSE, M.D. premiere, so i'll be back later with that one!

Rock Star INXS: The guys kicked Suzie out!, it was very clear that MiG wasn't the best performer, even now that he finally sung an INXS song for his first time in the bottom three (go Marty!), but it was clear that as of now, INXS wont be making that huge of a choice by picking a girl to front their band, now it's come down to the finale with Marty, J.D. & MiG, all of which could very well front this band, and each has a very different and unique style to them, which makes choosing a favorite a challenge, imagine what the INXS guys have to be thinking of now, although i'm quite sure that they already know by now who they're gonna choose, but still, all three of these guys have what it takes, especially Marty & surprisingly J.D. (who i hated very much so most of the time but now really looks like he could do it). The one trailing has to be MiG, and his only plus would be that he is, as the rest of the INXS guys, from Australia.

The O.C.: Okay, so i think i'll give this show another chance, if only because it's now mostly like season 1 all over again, which is a good and bad thing. Now that we're getting back to that teen-school-drama that I liked a lot from this show before, but it feels like they're recycling the stories from season 1 too, with Jimmy owing money again, Ryan fighting, Marissa rebeling, all of this mixed with an annoying new Dean of Harbor High who, for no reason whatsoever wants Ryan & Marissa out of the school, and I hate that they just do that, for NO GOD-DAMN REASON, at least explain something!

Happy Gilmore

Finally, the television season is starting in other networks other than FOX, today was the WB's turn, with the return of "Gilmore Girls" with the answer to that spontaneous proposal and the fallout of Rory leaving Yale & living with the Grandparents.

First off, the answer to the proposal is not really a big surprise or a big deal throughout this Season Premiere, the most important part of all is the way Lorelai is dealing with losing her daughter and everybody in town butting into her life, with Luke, Rory, her parents, everybody. And it appears that not only Lorelai isn't dealing well with Rory leaving college, Paris is a wreak because she needs the competition to succeed, Logan (Rory's boyfriend) is betting that she'll return in less than a week, and the whole town of Stars Hollow is getting worried that she's in a jiff with her mom. All of this complemented with quirky situations of comedy here and there from the town's great supporting cast, from Kirk selling dead women's wedding rings, Taylor pissed at all the bicylcists from the race, Michelle feeling like a dog at Lorelai's house, to Babbette being on top, this is one way too funny show and am glad it's back.

Season Premiere Grade: A-

Other highlights of Tuesday Sept. 13, 2005:

A Review of the Season Premiere of HOUSE, M.D. will be posted soon after this one.

Big Brother 6: Ivette annoys me. Period. And... woohoo the blond bwitch is dead! Go Janelle!

Rock Star INXS: Marty rocks!!!, and MiG is clearly falling off the scale of greatness after Jordis last week. My top two are Marty & Suzie, if INXS wants a guy then Marty's their guy, he can really bring them into the 21st century with his great mixture of classic rock with new-rock and grunge that feels quite welcome for this era, his original song "Trees" really does feel like it could be on the radio right now; and if they want a girl, then they have no other choice either way, but they chose well by sticking with Suzie and her great rendition of 4 Non Blonde's "What's Up" truly attested to that, but i truly believe that she can make a big name for herself as a solo artist than Marty can, because a male rocker needs the support of a band (look at Chris Cornell, great with Soundgarden & Audioslave, not great as a solo artist), but female rockers tend to do great on their own (Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge). We'll see what INXS decides in the finale next week, because even J.D. can surprise, after being constantly good, although cocky at times, as opposed to MiG's fallouts lately.

Go back to the O.C., bitch!

Continuing with my series of reviews of the new TV season, comes the second premiere of the Fall, FOX's The O.C., which comes back to begin it's third season. This show has come a long way from its genious first season of teen angst and rivalry, and is now so focused in returning to that after the train wreck that the second season was, that it now just looks rediculous. Don't get me wrong, i grew to love the first season, with all the drama of a rebel teenager getting to live with a high power, morally perfect New Port Beach family that takes him in to raise and protect him. The couple's son, Seth, with all his pop-culture satire, his love for the unattainable prom queen, and the rebel girl next door who's parent split after her dad steals from practically everybody that lives in New Port. Well isn't that quite a soap opera!.

And now, after one of the weakest seasons a show has ever had, really.... an alcohol problem in 2 weeks!, a porn past that was never uncovered, a guy falling dead when his wife was about to kill him, turning lesbo in like a second, two teenagers getting a contract to publish a comic book, shooting someone out of the blue!.... it's just plain stupid, and they know it, that's why the producers of the show are desperately trying to return to the O.C., the original O.C., but it's just going on way too fast with way too much stuff going on that it's just impossible to ignore their stupidity.

For all it's worth, i'll give this show a try this next week, to see which way this season is really going, but with soooo many good shows airing at the same time on Thursdays, this one is falling off my list faster and faster.

My Grade: C