Though the best new show on cable may be Mad Men, the most watched is Saving Grace, a Highway to Heaven update starring the commanding Holly Hunter. I chalk this up to everyone who's read The Left Behind series, but of course, that lead-in from Kyra Sedwick's The Closer, of whose audience SG retains 91 percent, doesn't hurt.
The show is rough around the edges—critics bemoan the angel-saving-the-wicked-woman premise, and I wish they'd give up on the tidy, police procedural plotlines and just let the actors act already—but it stands up, and hasn't become tired like the "get to the point already" Damages on FX.
Just in time for you to catch the last two episodes of the season before Heroes starts up on Mondays, here's five reasons to watch:
1. Holly HunterI know I don't need to convince you that Holly Hunter is a good actress. In the show, Hunter's nuanced acting makes her a joy to watch in any scene, even those suffering from often-cheesy dialogue (much of it penned by The Closer's Nancy Miller). And I don't think I could ever get sick of watching her drink, smoke, and fuck (all of which she does a lot of). Bonus points for scenes of her and a hot cowboy cop galloping on horses.
2. OklahomaI bet that it's actually filmed in LA, but the show takes place in Oklahoma (which is this state by Texas). The characters are always climbing trees and hanging out in barns and hick bars. And as we are continually reminded, Grace's sister died in the Oklahoma City bombing. Watching a series that takes place in a red state is kind of interesting, and there are some very pretty landscape shots.
3. Laura San Giacomo is more Kit than MayaLaura San Giacomo, who plays a forensics expert and has all of the "CSI" lines, is so likable you'll forget having to watch her as annoying Maya Gallow, lecturing David Spade on Just Shoot Me, and remember her as Julia Robert's lovable BHF (best hooker friend) in Pretty Woman.
4. Earl the Angel Isn't the Only One in HeavenLike all Shield fans (yes, I'm bringing up The Shield again), I've felt that the world hasn't been quite right ever since Lem fell victim to the ol' grenade-dropped-in-the-backseat. But here, we get to see Lem in his perfect afterlife. Instead of getting left by Vic to babysit three Salvadoran drug runners (and subsequently having to fight them all off), Lem—oops, I mean
Ham—is left by Grace to sit in a one of those wooden porch chairs outside of her grandfather's trailer, gazing at the sun (Lem almost gets shot in the head with a rifle; Ham, pooped on by a bird). Adding to the Oz-esque atmosphere of Lem's redemption-filled afterlife are his old nemeses in new roles: the woman who turned him in to IAD as a helpless rape victim, the IAD guy she talked to as Kit's husband. Pretty soon Forrest Whitaker is going to show up as his uncle or something.
5. Grace is an atheistI think the whole angel thing would do me in, but the show's saving grace (ha! get it?) is that Grace herself is an atheist. Unfortunately I don't think the show can go on for many more seasons before she converts, but as long as she keeps up her bad behavior, I may just be hooked.
Like most of you, I was gathered around my christmas tree + tv (they're so delightfully close to each other!) tonight watching AMC's airing of "Santa Claus: The Movie," that 1985 gem starring Dudley Moore as Patch, the elf gone bad.
After a trip to the graveyard (left) and to Arby's, we settled in peter's bed with turkey sandwiches, several cokes, and lots of beer to watch 6 episodes of The Shield from the season 1 set I bought just so I could loan it to people. Damn, have I mentioned how good The Shield is? You can't blame me for trying to get you to watch it, because right now we live in a society dominated by pop culture slang terms like vajayjay. When the New York Times writes a piece on vajayjays, it's time to take action.
If more people watched The Shield, the word for vagina in our lexicon would instead be "yammy," which is so much easier to say while raising an eyebrow. Sure, it's in the urban dictionary, but not enough people know about this and the many other dirty lines on The Shield that the FX Network lets slip through. According to the commentary on the infamous "ass fulla cum and back fulla shiv" episode, most of them are penned by Kurt Sutter, shown here as Margos Dezerian, shooting an associate. Would you rather be saying a word that guy popularized, or one that Oprah has told America is "paining" her? (Let me let you think about that one for a minute.) Sure, some people have caught on--Michael Chiklis reports still getting "sweet butter!" yelled at him on the sidewalk (I would link to the video on youtube, but fox pulled it down)--but it is now time for you to take the mantle and go buy the Shield DVDs (not that the writers will get any money for that). If you start watching now, you'll be able to catch up in time for the final season.
3. Maybe it's just because I spent a lot of time with him when I was going through puberty and he was a smoldering pediatrician, but I always kind of felt like George Clooney was mine. Until he forsook me for a cocktail waitress/scorpion eater/motorcycle accident victim. On the bright side, George never stays with one woman for too long, and look at her last boyfriend/Fear Factor partner! Maybe there is hope for me yet.
7. I think what is wrong with our culture today can pretty much be boiled down to the fact that smug, egotistical John Edwards still continues to get TV deals, while gentle, Mr. Belvedere lookalike James Van Praagh gets his show canceled and has to watch Jennifer Love Hewitt reenact his life. If I was dead, I would so never communicate with a guy who whitens his teeth so he can flirt with my bereft sister or whatever.
1. I'm in the back seat of a car with some people, on our way to a pool. Through a conversation we're having, I come to realize that the edition of Gone with the Wind that I have was not the original one. In both of our versions Rhett and Scarlett went to see a movie together, but in my version, the movie they go see is Star Wars, and there's a lot of talk about Star Wars. But in the real version, they went to see a different movie, and the version I have was a special promotional version that was put out when Star Wars came out. Suddenly it all seems so obvious--of course, Star Wars wasn't even out during the Civil War! and I say, "look, the only picture in mine is of a space ship from Star Wars!" I am devastated not only because I had been duped, but because the version of the book I have was my mother's, and its inscribed to her from her mother. And no one knew all along that it was the wrong version.
3. At I'm work, which has relocated to two doors down from my apartment building. Howard K. Stern calls me from Anna Nicole's wake, or maybe it was Danilynn's birthday, I don't know. I'm pretty psyched about this because he wants to do a book, like an autobiography or something, with us, and I think it's going to make a ton of money. The next thing I know, he's in my cubicle, shaking the back of my chair, and he talks me into getting up and waltzing with him in space between our cubicles.
6. My mom stabs Alan Arkin in the back of the neck.
I feel kind of bad for David. He gets to be just behind the action all the time, and he joked in a DVD commentary one time about how they were always having him go "around back" when they bust through a house and never show him. But his imdb page also says he's married to the most under-shown female regular on the show: Melanie Myers, who plays Paula the patrol woman, the occasional female confidante to Danny (like when she needs to talk about women stuff like almost kissing Dutch). No one on the internet seems to know when they got married, but I like to think that they spent their free time on the set getting to know each other, and ultimately making out in the "cage" after hours, and then falling in love.
I'm so desperate to see more David Rees Snell that I'm rather angry that the Hallmark Channel Original Movie "Desolation Canyon" isn't available on Netflix. Not only is David in it, but so is Kenny Johnson, who played poor Curtis "Lemonhead" Lemansky on The Shield. (Rounding out the cast is Stacey Keach and Patrick Duffy.) I have no doubt this critically lambasted Wild West adventure would keep me very entertained, as the only reason why I watch that new Holly Hunter program is to see Kenny have TV sex with her.
OK, so at this point I'm about to change the channel, but then Lifetime took ahold of me as~Shock!~in an Everwoodesque plot twist, Lucas gets hurt at a BB-ball game and goes into a coma.
