I finally gave up on a couple shows I’d watched every episode of earlier this year, Prison Break and Desperate Housewives.

While in DH’s case I hear I may have given up right before the show creatively resurrected itself, this spoilery item indicates I checked out of Prison Break at the right time.

Because seriously? That’s the most implausible plot twist they’ve come up with, and this is a show that’s pretty much a maze of implausible plot twists.

Shut up, Emo Peter Parker.

Although I’m at a bit of an unfair advantage: Working at the Fox Lot, we got a free screening tonight of Juno.

While I’m not nearly as eloquent a reviewer as Tim (and I actually look forward to his take on this movie), I’ll give the short version.

This is a movie with several major flaws, the most notable of which is a grating, failed attempt to capture the way teens talk to each other. It has its moments of hilarity, but the overall effect is distracting.

That said, if you want to see a LOT of outstanding acting, you should definitely see this movie.

Starting with Ellen Page (who does an outstanding job as the titular protagonist) and going down through every single supporting character, these actors do a really great job of selling material that often does not deserve it.

I’ll throw in a mention of Jennifer Garner, who I’ve always enjoyed but have never been terribly impressed with until now. She really sells the quiet desperation in a role that could have been made shrewishly hysterical by the wrong actress. Luckily, they cast Garner, and she’s great in a pivotal role.

There are a few very strong moments in the story, which I won’t spoil for those who wish to see it. But the bottom line is that while this movie has its issues, it’s certainly still worth being seen just for Page and Garner’s performances.

Also, I’d just like to note that I now have a huge crush on Ellen Page, which feels slightly less wrong after finding out she’s not quite as young as she looks and is actually 20, although still fairly wrong as she cannot legally drink.

I had not even been considering seeing wholly unnecessary sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age until I read Tim’s magnificent review of it in all its glorious awfulness.

Now, I have to see it. This is why Tim should be writing reviews for a living. God bless Rotten Tomatoes for adding him to the Tomatometer, giving him at least some of the exposure he richly deserves.

Almost a month into the season, I can now declare an official winner: Pushing Daisies.

I’d absolutely loved the first two episodes, with their bizarre hyper-techincolor acid trip set design, extremely strong acting, and cute (but without crossing the fine line into too cute) stories.

I was worried, however, because both episodes were directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, who directed Men in Black and The Addams Family, and whose excellent, ebullient visual storytelling leaned heavily on what turned out to be an absolutely obscene budget.

You saw every penny of the lavish spending on the screen, but in the world of television, that kind of outlay over 22 weeks becomes simply unsustainable.

So unsustainable, in fact, that ABC actually took the draconian step of banning Sonnenfeld from directing future episodes and slashing the budget to the bone. I worried that without the wild, inspired world they were able to paint with all that money, the whole house of cards would fall down.

I’m pleased to report that the writing of this week’s episode was inspired enough that I barely noticed the more drab and dimly lit surroundings.

Trying to explain what actually happens in the show is a bit of a mess. The basic premise is moderately understandable (though is annoyingly reiterated in every episode thus far): The main character touches a dead person once, they are resurrected. If he touches them again, they die, and stay dead.

If he does not touch them again to re-kill them in a minute, however, someone or something nearby will die in their place. He uses this power to help solve murders, and collect rewards. Oh, and he also revives dead fruit to make delicious pies at his awesomely named pie restaurant, the Pie Hole.

But trying to capture the texture of this show in words is totally impossible, other than to say it’s the most wildly inventive show I’ve seen in some time, and it’s clear that both the writers and the production designers have found themselves some truly excellent hallucinogens.

If you’re willing to read some spoilers, professional TV critic Alan Sepinwall sums up why this ridiculousness works a lot better than I can. Even he can’t capture the true level of weirdness, so if you haven’t seen any of the episodes yet, you should try and get the ABC.com streaming to work for you, and watch whatever episodes they have up.

Pushing Daisies‘ weird, wild house of cards could still all collapse in on itself. I’ll certainly admit to some misgivings about how long they can sustain the delicate balance they’ve struck. But until it does collapse, missing it would be a real shame.

What a waste.

The pilot was way better than I’d heard it would be, particularly the excellent fight scenes, and I thought this could turn into a good show. But what false optimism it gave me has quickly been dissolved by the second and third episodes.

I’ve come to agree with the critics: Michelle Ryan is disastrously miscast as the lead. I was hoping the weaknesses she showed in the pilot would go away as she got more comfortable in the role, but they’re still there all the way through the third episode. She makes the character seem obnoxiously wishy-washy, and when you’re supposed to be a superhero, that’s the kiss of death.

Katee Sackhoff is by far the best part of the show as “The First Bionic Woman,” as she refers to herself in the pilot. The way Sackhoff is instantly and totally confident in her role no matter how ridiculous her character’s story becomes only makes Ryan’s miscasting all the more glaring.

I will say, the hysterically funny levels of LESBIAN SUBTEXT! (it’s about that subtle) between the two [Les]Bionic Women are aaaaalmost worth suffering through another episode.

Unfortunately, the show’s not nearly compelling enough to keep watching. I guess I’m just going to have to start getting Battlestar Galactica DVDs from Netflix. Mmmm…Starbuck…

Here’s another quick set of impressions of the stuff I watched this week. I’ll post scattered quickies of some of the late-premiering stuff, but this is the last big roundup.

This week’s bias alerts come from the fact that I work for these folks, so reviews for anything in our timeslot (9/8 central, Tuesdays) or in our medical genre you should view with a wary eye. That said:

Cane (Tuesdays at 10, CBS) - It’s nice to see non-white culture represented on network TV, but the level of arm-flailing “HEY! LOOK! CUBANS!” is pretty silly. They roast pigs! They have dance sequences! They smoke enough cigars to make a viewer cough from the thought of all the secondhand smoke! The oddest aspect of this is the occasional line or set of lines in (english-subtitled) Spanish, when the remainder of the scene is in English, with exceedingly clumsy transitions between the two.

However, despite some Dynasty-level plot twists, it’s not ridiculous enough to dismiss out of hand. There are a ton of absolutely outstanding actors in this, and the setting is novel enough that once the writers hit their stride, it could turn into a really interesting show. The only question is if enough viewers will stick around to keep this show on the air until then.

Dirty Sexy Money (Wednesdays at 10, ABC) - Another entry in the overstuffed “Rich People are Fucking Crazy” genre, but this one’s at least more entertaining than most. Peter Krause is great as the lawyer trying to get disentangled with a disgustingly rich family his father got entangled with years ago.

Donald Sutherland is a bit over the top as the patriarch of said family, but the excesses here are not nearly as obnoxious as those of Big Shots (see below). Total soap opera, but it reminds me of the first season of Desperate Housewives, back when that show was actually pretty damn good.

Reaper (Tuesdays at 9, CW) - This show is a direct competitor to my employers, so I can’t give it a full review. It’s similar to Chuck in a lot of ways, but different enough to not come off as a complete clone. Ray Wise, who plays the devil, is hysterical and blatant in his thievery of every scene he’s in. Let’s just say I wish this was in another timeslot.

Private Practice (Wednesdays at 9, ABC) - Disappointing. When you take her away from the increasingly annoying characters who populate Grey’s Anatomy (from which this show was spun off), Addison just becomes another annoying character. It’s an absolute waste of Kate Walsh’s talent.

A point I agreed with that was hammered home in review after review I read of this show was that these middle-aged people have gained no wisdom with age - They’re just as neurotic as the 20-somethings who populate Grey’s, but without the excuse of youth to forgive their ridiculously unnecessary drama. If you don’t like Grey’s, you’ll hate this, and even if you do, you still may not like it very much.

Big Shots (Thursdays at 10, ABC) - Breathtakingly smarmy, and damn near unwatchable. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to punch every single main character in the face within the first five minutes of a pilot before.

Gets the uncoveted distinction of First Season Pass Deletion of the season, a feat achieved the second the pilot was over. Oh, and whoever thought this show would work well in the post-Grey’s timeslot needs to get canned, or at least drug tested, right quick.

So before I start, I want to make crystal clear for anyone stumbling across this that all opinions here are my own as a TV viewer and should not reflect at all on the people who choose to employ me so I can continue to afford 8,000 cable channels.

Also, I have two levels of bias alert: Slight Bias Alert means I know a couple of people who are there now but who had nothing to do with the pilot, so I feel comfortable reviewing it in earnest. Bias Alert means I know people heavily involved in the pilot and can’t really give an unbiased review, but I’ll say a couple words about it.

That said, here are the reviews for things I’ve already seen the pilots for, either on TV or via some alternate means:

Chuck (Mondays at 8 on NBC) - Perfect companion to Heroes. I will be shocked if this doesn’t turn into a hit. Zachary Levi is spot-on as the underacheiving geek whose CIA roommate sends him a series of pictures that has all the secrets of the US Government embedded within it, then has a hot chick from the CIA come and try to find out what he knows and possibly kill him. Okay, yes, that makes it sound a bit dopey, but if you thought Heroes was nice and nerdy but maybe a bit too serious, you will definitely love Chuck.

Life (slight bias alert, Wednesdays at 9 on NBC) - I love Damian Lewis (who was wonderful in Band of Brothers), but this show is just weird. They take a run-of-the-mill cop show and try to make it interesting by slapping an out-of-place documentary framing device on it and making the lead cop (Lewis) a man who was recently freed after being framed for murder. Largely, they fail because Lewis’s character comes off as more obnoxiously quirky than anything else.

I will say, I do appreciate a show that both contains Robin Weigert (who was fucking awesome as unrepentant drunk Calamity Jane on Deadwood and who I am always happy to see working) and finds repeated excuses to get smokin’ Sarah Shahi a) in a police uniform, which is hot, and b) out of her shirt, which is hotter. That’ll at least buy them two more episodes on my TiVo.

Back To You (Wednesdays at 8 on Fox) - The first ten minutes of this were not terribly promising, but despite the appearance of a couple of flagrantly obnoxious supporting characters (I’m looking at you, fat young sweaty news director and hot daddy issues latina weathergirl), I think this could turn into a pretty amusing show. Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton are old pros, and it’s their chemistry that makes this work.

I think as long as they try to keep it focused on the more interesting characters (Grammer, Heaton, the local reporter passed over for the anchor job, and delightfully loopy Fred Willard doing his tried, true, and still hilarious shtick as the asshole Sports Guy), this could end up being a long-runner.

K-Ville (bias alert, Mondays at 9 on Fox) - I’ll leave most of my observations out of this except to say the guy they have running the writers room over there used to work at my show, and he is an absolutely outstanding writer. Every script he wrote here was jaw-droppingly awesome. If anyone can make this work over the course of a season, he can. However, I fear this may get stomped hard by the Heroes juggernaut before it gets a chance to fully find its voice.

Journeyman (Mondays at 10 on NBC) - The show’s versions of time travel and its machinations are not terribly well-explained, but Kevin McKidd from Rome does a good to great job in the title role. I was a bit unsure of this show until the final scene of the pilot, which is really a triumph of McKidd’s acting ability. If they can find material that will consistently touch the emotions of the viewer the way that scene does (I shit you not, it gave me goosebumps), this is a show to watch out for.

Bionic Woman (Wednesdays at 9 on NBC) - The reviews for this pilot haven’t been great, but I really enjoyed the action stuff they did, and came off a lot more impressed than I thought I’d be. The non-action aspects were definitely a bit too far into the dark side, but it’s got quite a bit of potential.

There is one big concern I have, and that’s the post-pilot addition of Isaiah Washington to this show after his recent shitcanning at Grey’s due to his violent, homophobic outburst last year and subsequent complete inability to shut his persecution-complexed piehole about said incident. Washington’s got a hell of a lot of talent, but he got fired less than a month before he got this gig for being a loose cannon and potential liability, and his hiring smacks of “any publicity is good publicity” desperation. It does not give me confidence that they’ve been able to patch the flaws in the show on their own.

More to come next weekend after I watch the pile o’stuff premiering this week.

Here’s the long review I promised earlier this week. Bunch of mini-reviews for the pilots I’ve already seen will be up later today.

Many people have been asking me, “What the fuck has happened to HBO lately?” I call it Albrecht’s revenge.

Chris Albrecht, the former head of HBO who was unceremoniously booted after getting arrested for beating his girlfriend (and after a previously covered up incident of the same nature was revealed shortly thereafter), really left his former employers in the lurch with the slate he greenlit just prior to his departure. It’s almost as if he knew the jig was up.

John From Cincinatti was an impenetrable mess, chosen to debut in the timeslot following the head-scratching finale of The Sopranos (my mom’s reaction was fairly typical). It flopped spectacularly, and now the next of Albrecht’s hand-picked successors is here to shit all over HBO’s once-pristine reputation.

Someone asked me earlier this week via text message to explain what happens on Tell Me You Love Me, and my 160 character-limited reply was, “boring conversation, boring conversation, fucking, then boring conversation.” In other words, another serious disappointment.

The premise, at first glance, is right up HBO’s alley. A realistic look at marriage that would strip away the layers of bullshit that constantly surround relationships, complete with lots of envelope-pushing sexual situations? It must have sounded like a home run during the pitch.

The problem is in the execution. The scripts shoot for honest but wind up at excruciating. There’s a very fine line in film and television between being really honest about how life is really lived and presenting people with rehashed versions of arguments that they had this morning, and that they’d really prefer not to relive.

The best example I can find of the former is Friday Night Lights, a show that infuses even the angriest arguments with love and humor. Tell Me You Love Me just infuses everything with deep bitterness, and it makes the show incredibly obnoxious.

The other problem with the show is a bit more endemic to its premise than to its specific execution: Dramas about troubled relationships, particularly those which are shooting for realism, are particularly difficult to do well because of the deeply boring nature of most fights to people not actually IN the relationship.

The couple having fertility difficulties might resonate with other couples having fertility difficulties. I, however, have seen this story line one too many times, and the exact same beats are covered in every treatment of it:

“This is my fault for having dried up eggs, this is your fault for having dried up sperm, let’s schedule sex to meet my ovulation schedule, let’s throw out the schedule and just be romantic, this is our fault for not trying hard enough, this is nobody’s fault so let’s just love each other.”

That’s just one example of the mind-numbingly boring plot recycling that goes on between sex scenes in the show. Sadly, in some plotlines, fights aren’t just boring, they’re actively irritating.

Take, for example, the engaged couple of the show. Their troubles begin after she overhears him talking about how he doesn’t think, even though they’re engaged, he’ll ever spend the rest of his life only sleeping with one woman. This sends her into an almost psychotic tizzy, freaking out that because he can’t commit right then and there at that very second to not sleeping with anyone for the next forty to sixty years, he doesn’t really love her enough.

Now, this is a stupid enough premise on its own, but the acting and the writing really turn it into the single most asinine argument you’ve ever heard. Halfway through the second episode I wanted to scream at this poor guy, “Oh my God, RUN! Dump this lunatic before it’s too late!”

And then…there’s the sex. It’s an unavoidable part of the show in a “Wow, did they actually just show that guy’s balls? I think they did. Oh look, there they are again!” sort of way. They also think they’re pushing the envelope by showing a 60-something woman giving her husband a blowjob, but I was simply left with the rather creepy feeling that I’d just walked in on someone else’s parents having sex.

The graphic nature of the sex is supposed to be daring and show deeper levels of a relationship than you can show without it, but if the characters are so annnoying and/or underdeveloped as to leave the viewer completely unable to connect with any of them, the sex can’t come off as anything other than pornographic and prurient.

And believe me, if you’re watching this show for the 2-3 brief sex acts that take place over the course of an hour, you need to go take the $14 a month you’re paying for HBO and go buy some actual pornography, because it’d certainly be sexier and a far more effective means to an end than anything shown here.

The whole thing is just unfortunate, because there are a couple good actors who are wasted in horribly bland parts: Tim DeKay from Carnivàle just can’t do anything with the colorless sad-sack husband who’s lost interest in sex, and Ally Walker as his wife who goes to couples therapy without him is hilariously passive-agressive.

Overall, it’s another serious dent in HBO’s once-impenetrable armor. I won’t even give this the chance I gave John From Cincinnati of watching the whole season, partly since the highly awesome Dexter is starting up in the same timeslot in a couple weeks. I gave JFC that chance because it was so fucking weird and David Milch is so fucking brilliant that I thought maybe, maybe there’s a point to continuing to watch this and it will eventually turn awesome, despite the fact that it never did.

That hope doesn’t exist with this show. For the first time in a while for an HBO show, the season pass is getting deleted from the TiVo tonight. Thanks, Albrecht.

So it’s Beginning of the TV Season Time again, and I’m once again getting the itch to review some of the new stuff.

I’m in the midst of writing up my feelings on one fall show that’s already premiered, and I wanted to know if you guys were interested in some of my critiques of new fall shows.

Now, granted, because of where I work, there will be several shows I can’t really review without serious conflicts of interest.

Just to name a few: K-Ville’s pilot was directed by a guy who’s now an EP for us and their head writer used to work for us as well; Life has a former EP of ours; we’re up against Reaper; I also probably can’t give a fair review to Private Practice because of its connection to Grey’s.

However, I probably wouldn’t have time to write that many reviews anyway. I want to know how interested you guys are in hearing my ramblings, because I’ll probably do one of two things:

1. Post a big long summary of short observations about all the shows I’ve watched, plus my one longer review that I’ve already half written.

2. Post a few longer reviews of selected shows.

Which would you kids prefer? Or would you prefer to wait to make your decision until after I’ve posted my longer review?