TV Wednesday

Dear James, Daniel and Emily,

Had to wait until I finally got a chance to watch Mad Men so I could write up this column. I will hit on some general thoughts on a couple of shows, then share my tweets from Heroes and Mad Men.

CSI

Yuck, since when did this show become a soap opera about the characters and lose the focus on the cases? The cases is what drove the show, and the fact that the main characters had personal lives was only ancillary to the main plot each episode. That has slowly eroded until you get this new season where the show is almost solely focused on the characters, and only lightly brushes the actual case of the week. Which means my interest in the show will fade rapidly if this trend continues.

Mentalist

Just a fun show, fun to see Jane mess with people. And I like the way they are trying to get him away from the Red John case, and his obvious response. And it's fun that the only one who fully goes along with Jane in his odd way of pursuing the case is Cho, the one guy you least expect to operate outside the lines. This show still keeps it's freshness which is what makes it fun to watch.

NCIS & NCIS: LA

I liked the way NCIS opened the season and how it handled the Zeeva situation. I thought it was all still in character and pretty cool. NCIS LA was mildly entertaining, but I don't know if it can keep up with the original.

Heroes

Yuck, not happy with the show in general, they are trying very hard to make this show unwatchable. They really need to stop killing the interesting characters and maybe let these boring, uninteresting characters go away, like Parkman, which I capture in more detail via Twitter:

New #Heroes tonght, any improvements?

Kids in bed, ready for more #Heroes. Of all the characters for Sylar to torture: Parkman? These writers suck.

Okay what's with the chick? Does she have super hearing? Already way tired of Parkman/Sylar on #Heroes

OK damn #Comcast digital tiling sure as hell doesn't make #Heroes better...

I just don't think I am ready for this season of #Heroes, if familiarity breeds contempt I am way too familiar with this show...

I think the last one says it all, I am just flat tired of these chracters, who all happen to be the worst characters on the show IMHO. And this makes the show very hard to cope with.

House M.D.

Loved this show, love the way we ended up with House coming back to Plainsboro. Some interesting twists along the way, like demonstrating that House is just a unique genius, who could be pretty much anything he wants (a really fun departure would have been for them to just trash the whole Doctor thing and focus on House as he applies his unique personality to other things, imagine Hells Kitchen with House as the Chef for example...). I am not yet done with these characters, they stay fresh and interesting.

Mad Men

Loved it, I really loved it, just a cool episode. Worth the wait to see. This show just does such a wonderful job of keeping the characters fresh and interesting, and yet they don't change so much that we don't care about them any more. I could have almost predicted the events in the episode this week, just very cool:

Settling down to finally watch #MadMen

Well this little meeting for Betty could be interesting, love to see someone make Don defensive on #MadMen

Nobody backs Don into a corner and ties him down with a contract, nobody! Harry knows what he's doing, but does Betty? #MadMen

Wow, Don sure gets snappy when he gets called. Sorry that Peggy took the brunt for his anger on #MadMen

Reds and whiskey, recipe for fun or disaster... Peggy and Don are getting lessons in the generation gap on #MadMen

Don can be tied down after all, when Bert Cooper puts him over a barrel... 16 tons indeed, not exactly what do at #MadMen...

I recall an interview with Jon Hamm where he said this season would be about change, well damn if he didn't hit it right on the nose. There's a lot of change going on, and it's fun to see Don forced to cope with it, get put on the defensive, remind us that for all his cool, he's not superman. And I will be interested to see how Peggy handles her fling with the older man.