Monday, February 20, 2006

McEvil?

Happy President's Day, everybody. In honor of this day, I've decided to grow a beard with no mustache and stop flossing to increase the likelihood I'll have to wear wooden teeth down the road. Needless to say, my wife is a huge fan of both decisions.

Oh, "Grey's Anatomy," you just want people to despise Meredith, don't you? Forget her sledgehammer narration or her uncanny ability to make everyone's problems be all about her, now she's about to rip the heart of George -- the most universally-liked character on the show -- into a million little pieces by using him to work out all her issues with daddy and McDreamy. Maybe the plan is to turn her into the villain of the show, like Heather Locklear or Joan Collins or Melinda Clarke, because I'm not sure how she recovers from this one with even a shred of likability intact. How was George to know he'd be making his pitch at both exactly the right time (to get laid) and wrong time (to become her boyfriend forevuh)?

Liked the rest of the episode well enough, but I was really struck by the transformation of Eric Dane, who played McDreamy's ex-pal. A few years back, he was playing a clueless intern on one of ABC's previous attempts at a hospital franchise show, "Gideon's Crossing," and he could not have been less interesting. But add a few years and lines to his face, and suddenly, he's someone who might have a career yet. I wouldn't be shocked at all if the show contrives a way to have him move to Seattle Grace, too. Eventually, the entire surgical population of Manhattan is going to get jobs there, all of them tangentially lated to the McDreamy break-up.

It's hard for me to talk about "Battlestar Galactica," since I watched Friday's episode back to back with my screener of this week's. Friday's was good, don't get me wrong -- the special effects in the space battle were among the best the show's ever had, and I liked Hey It's That Guy inner circler John Heard as the latest redshirt Pegasus commander -- but I've already started working on my entry for Friday's episode, which is a doozy and a half.

Since there's almost nothing left in theaters I want to see, and since the theatergoing experience has become so brutal (we went to see "Brokeback" last week, and a half-dozen teenage girls giggled through the entire film), I figured I'd hit the video store to fill up the long weekend. Last night was "Broken Flowers," which I liked but didn't love. Ironic detachment is Jim Jarmusch's thing (not to mention Bill Murray's), but his movies always hold me at a distance, so that even as I'm enjoying the performances (Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone and Chloe Sevigny were all a lot of fun), I can't fully get involved in the story.

Up next: "Mysterious Skin," in which the kid from "3rd Rock" gets molested. That oughta be a happy one.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love your column in the Star Ledger and this blog.
You have to check out http://www.greyswriters.com/for the explanation of why Mer will sleep with George.