90210 S1E3: "It would be weird if you banged a teacher."

"Lucky Strike"

Boots here, with a clarification: I referred to the 90210 mom as “Celia” in the last post because even though I swore her name was Debbie the CW website said it was Celia. It’s not. It’s Debbie. But anyway, since I was watching Fringe on Tuesday Hans was kind enough to blog 90210 for me. But then, the CW re-aired the episode last night, so got to watch it. I actually thought it was better than the first … but still not good. And now, we go to Hans…

We don't need to get into a lot of details here. Tons of people watched the debut of 90210 last week. As some of you are aware, the ratings dropped drastically (30%) on the 2nd night because it wasn't that good. It's catty, full of gossip, pandering to teenage stereotypes, and full of tiny skinny girls who are 20 trying to look 15 (which they actually do a good job at). My response to that is, "eat a hamburger."

I don't want to summarize in great detail because I think that if you care about my reaction you've probably already seen the episode. Here's the quick and dirty. Parents want a family night on a Friday but the kids have stuff they'd rather do with their new Beverly Hills friends. The parents insist on going bowling, so to thwart their plan the kids invite all their Beverly Hills friends to show up at the bowling alley "randomly.” All these events occur in perfect order so the kids get their way and their parents let them do what they wanted to do in the first place. The only notables are that Silver and Dixon totally have crushes on each other, Ethan and Annie totally have crushes on each other that are doomed to work out this season but will play out later, and Naomi's dad is hooking up with some lady who lives out of town. Naomi's mom is completely OK with this because she has an open relationship with Naomi's dad because he's rich and gives her lots of shiny things. Naomi is messed up about it because she's 15 or something like that. Whatever, daddy bought her a car to make up for not taking her to Vegas so he could sleep with his GF from another state.

I don't have much to say as far as observations go. Kelly Taylor's kid is totally Steve Sanders' kid. He's blond and has curly hair. Tonight she said it was a, "friend from high school who showed up four years after high school and they hooked up." So it’s Brandon, Dylan, or Steve. I suppose it could be Dylan because obviously the guy is a total douche for leaving her high and dry with a kid, but I still think it's Steve because of the way the kid looks. [Boots says: I think it’s Dylan; Brandon is too responsible to leave Kelly alone with a kid and the kid's blondness means it's too obvious if it's Steve]. I’m sure we'll find out who the baby daddy is in the next two weeks or so.

Silver and Kelly's mom, Jackie, is a drunk. We know this from the original. Apparently she hasn't changed, except now she likes the drink more than the coke. I still don't know where she gets the money to live in Beverly Hills but that's a conversation for another night. They estimated Monica's apartment in Friends would have cost close to a million a month to rent in New York, so who cares about reality on TV right? Anyway, Dixon finds Silver sleeping in a car because Jackie is a maniac drunk. Debbie and Harry are the good parents so they help Silver out, but Harry tells Kelly what's going on. Kelly tries to talk to Jackie, but because she's just a drunk old beyotch she ends up throwing Silver out of the house. So Kelly takes Silver home with her. I can live with that kind of drama.

My reaction to all of this is pretty much what you'd expect. I want some more Brenda. At the very least I want to confirm she looks as old and haggard as she did in the first episode because she did! I want more Nat. Why no Peach Pit scenes? This show isn't totally stupid but it's kind of stupid. I guess I shouldn't expect more but it seems like a rip-off of something. They throw new, hip music in like the OC, but it seems more like junior high drama than typical TV high school drama. I want an unplanned pregnancy, an abortion, zits, fuck anything other than what I'm getting. Dixon said it best when he said that the family he's living with is the Cosbys. I suppose the Walshes were the Cosbys too, but seriously. It's not 1994 anymore. I need drama, I need hi-jinx, I need scandal, and I need teenagers acting irresponsibly. They'd better get this straight soon or I'm deleting this from my DVR and will resume patiently twiddling my thumbs for the return of Battlestar Galactica and Lost. Back to you, Boots…

What is the deal with these kids?!?! No drinking, no smoking, no casual sex ... and it's cool to go bowling and be in school musicals. I started to feel really sorry for Naomi in this episode. When she saw her dad making out with that woman in the parking lot, Adriana's all, “That’s not your mom.” Come on, writers, a little subtlety! What, just in case Naomi doesn’t know what her mom looks like, Adriana is there to helpfully remind her? If the writers can get their shit together, Naomi could be a really interesting character. I also enjoyed the Dixon-Silver flirtation. And, despite my own wishes, I am sucked in by the Ethan-Annie relationship. I mean, Ty ditches her and doesn’t even apologize, and the next morning Ethan texts just to say hi. Cute! And, when Ethan asks Annie to "get some air" at the bowling alley it was so awkward and adorable! I liked the fact the Jackie is still a drunk, despite all Kelly's attempts to help her in the original series. And finally, to soothe Hans’ ragged nerves, from the promo photos on the CW site it looks like Dixon will begin working at the Peach Pit in the next couple of episodes. I give it two more weeks … if it’s not better (or canceled) by then I will bid 90210 adieu. As EW says, “You know when Jennie Garth is still at the center of 90210, you’ve got to worry.”

Fringe S1E1: “Be careful what you wish for.”

Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! If you didn’t see the premiere, it will air again on Sunday. According to EW it averaged 9 million viewers, which is not great, but not terrible.

First off, let’s get the obvious Alias comparisons out of the way:
1. Smart, accomplished, feisty, rule-breaking federal agent: check
2. Dying/dead lover: check
3. Sexy partner with a shady past: check
4. Mad genius who could easily be either good or evil: check

Despite all of this, Fringe brings something new to the table. One, it is very, very funny. A nice mix of eerie ambiance and tongue-in-cheek humor. Quite good. Two, it marks the return of Joshua Jackson to my weekly routine, so I will follow it to the ends of the earth. I especially like the “location marks,” which is hard to describe but if you watched it, you know. Like most J.J. Abrams’ shows, it appears to be a fun & mysterious ride, and it is important to hop aboard from the beginning. However, it is also one of those shows that I feel like a raving lunatic recapping.

THE MAJOR PLAYERS



Olivia Dunham, sassy FBI agent.



John Scott, another FBI agent and Olivia’s lover.



Walter Bishop, mad scientist.



Peter Bishop, high school dropout with a genius IQ and father issues.



Phillip Broyles, inscrutable FBI agent and Olivia’s boss.

And William Bell, mysterious billionaire owner of Massive Dynamic.

THE RECAP
We open on a plane, where a guy shoots himself with an insulin pen and then everyone on board melts. It’s graphic, and pretty sickening. In the next scene, we see the very same dude hanging out in the background as federal agents swarm the plane. Hmmmm. Olivia has a negative first encounter with Broyles, the agent in change of their team. Broyles sends Olivia and John to check out a lead at a storage facility, and John is exposed to flesh-eating bacteria, which puts him in a coma and turns him into the human equivalent of the Visible Man doll. The special effects are great.

Desperate to save John, Olivia uncovers a connection to Walter Bishop, a mad scientist genius who specialized in “fringe science” for the government but was locked in an insane asylum for experimenting on human test subjects. She tracks down his son Peter, who she blackmails into helping her spring Walter from the asylum. She learns that in the seventies, Walter shared a lab with William Bell, now-billionaire owner of science & tech company Massive Dynamic. This smacks of the Dharma Initiative, and in fact there is a “commercial” for Massive Dynamics later in the program. Not my thing, but whatever.

Walter tells Olivia the fact that they can see through John’s skin is “not good.” For those in the know, Walter reminds me immensely of the character David Cronenberg played in the third season of Alias. We learn that Olivia was bluffing about having info to blackmail Peter with. BUT the bluff worked, so he clearly has some sort of shady past. The two also hit it off hardcore, so I’m thinking John’s got to die in order for the show to work the sexual tension.

Walter “connects” Olivia’s brain to John’s so that he can “tell” her what he saw at the storage facility. He has had luck questioning corpses this way in the past. “He wants to give you a drug overdose, put a metal rod in your head, and put you naked in a rusty tank of water,” Peter says in disbelief. Walter’s reply? “Well no, I don’t want to. I’d rather not. It’s just that I can.” And the delivery is impeccable.

It seems pretty clear at this point that the mystery guy is going to be related to this William Bell character. Turns out he’s twins, and one, named Steig, used to work for Bell. Olivia goes to Massive Dynamics and has a creepy interaction with a woman who pulls the skin off her forearm to expose a bionic arm. In this moment, the show crosses the line between “crazy but I’ll roll with it” to “utterly ridiculous.” The woman says mysterious things about “the pattern.”

Olivia talks to Broyles, who has decided she is worth something after all. He dangles a series of recent unexplained occurrences in front of her, refers to them as “the pattern,” and offers Olivia a spot on his top-secret team, saying she can “bring anyone she wants.” SD-6, anyone? She refuses. Meanwhile, Walter has figured out a way to save John, who comes out of his coma. Olivia questions Steig, who claims his work on the plane was done for the FBI. She finds an evidence tape Steig has hidden and discovers his FBI contact is none other than John! I’m actually surprised; I was expecting it to be Broyles.

John kills Steig and there is a big chase scene that culminates in his death. All that work saving him from flesh-eating bacteria, for naught. Though I knew John had to die, this is a tad anti-climactic. Before he bites it, he says to Olivia, “Ask yourself why Broyles sent you to the storage facility. Why you?”

In the end, Olivia decides to join Broyles’ team and asks Peter and his dad to stay in Boston – Walter’s experiments with Bell were just the beginning. So, I guess next week Peter will suddenly be a field agent or something. The final scene shows Bionic Arm Woman ordering a Massive Dynamics employee to “question” John’s corpse. Duh duh DUM!

ANTM Cycle 11: Wooo! Edition

Yes, this [unnecessarily] two-hour premiere was chock-full of skinny girls throwing their arms in the air and screaming “Woooo!” Set in Los Angeles this season, the premiere of ANTM had an unsettling “it’s 1950 but we’re pretending it’s 2010” retro-futuristic theme. I hope it does not continue because yikes, was it poorly executed.

Choice quotes of the night included:
“I come from a disadvantaged area but that doesn’t make what you could become”
“I’m Asian but my personality doesn’t match”
“My opinions aren’t close-minded, they’re traditional”

MEET THE MODELS
Shauran: can’t name a single fashion designer
Lauren Brie: blonde Barbie who describes herself as “exotic looking”
Analeigh: was a competitive figure skater
Clark: openly admits she will manipulate others to get ahead
Kacey: comes off as racist
Marjorie: French, looks indie, super insecure
Joslyn: has auditioned for ANTM 30 (!!!) times, super squeaky voice
Isis: transgendered beauty who was “born the wrong body”
Sheena: super confident, talks about herself a lot
Lindsey: too big to be a regular model, too small for plus-size
Brittany: is totally nondescript in every way
Hannah: grew up in Alaska with no electricity or running water
Elina: stunning vegan animal liberation activist lesbian
Nikeysha: says “heeey” too much, flashes the judges
McKey: tomboy who helps train her boyfriend, the cage fighter
Susan: Harvard English grad who can’t name a literary heroine
Samantha: California blonde who can’t name a single working model

They do a basic shoot, and Kacey, Lindsey, and Susan are chopped. The girls move into the loft and bombard Isis with questions. She is good-natured about it. Some of them are totally cool; others are completely freaked out. One girl says, “Walk around like that in a small town and you’d get shot.” Another says, ““My opinions aren’t close-minded, they’re traditional.” Sure they are.

AT THE CHALLENGE
The girls go to the Magic Castle and get one-on-one time with each of the judges. I kept hoping Neil Patrick Harris would make a cameo. I grow to like Sheena more than I expected. Isis does fantastically in her meeting with Nigel, though he comments that there is something “strange” about her. Supposedly the other judges don’t know about her situation until the judging room. Sure they don’t.

DURING THE SHOOT
The theme is “Voting Is Sexy.” Each girl portrays a political issue. The good: Marjorie (immigration), Brittany (military), Elina (foreign policy), and Isis (privacy). Shauran and a couple other bitches are involved in Isis’ shoot and they say nasty things to try to throw her off. She rocks it anyway.

DURING PANEL
Marjorie, Elina, Samantha, Analeigh, Brittany, Sheena, McKey, and Isis are praised.

The first photo is Marjorie. The bottom two are Shauran and Nikeysha. Shauran is eliminated and she completely loses it, falling to the ground and sobbing her heart out. Good riddance!

90210 S1E1-2: "It's like Pretty Woman, only I'm not a whore."

Boots’ verdict: This is pretty bad huh?
Hans’ verdict: Bad in a really delicious way.

We open with a family in a car. White dad, white mom, white daughter, black son. Bam! Right off the bat – a nod to Steve Sanders, adopted kid. The Wilson family moves from Kansas to Beverly Hills to care for alcoholic, washed-up ex-celebrity Grandma Tabitha (Arrested Development’s Jessica Walther, whose character is basically the same as boozy Lucille Bluth). Dad Harry is going to be the new principal at West Beverly. Mom Celia doesn’t appear to have a job. The Brandon & Brenda of our modern-day reinterpretation are Dixon & Annie.

There are a LOT of secondary characters. They are:



Ethan: golden boy, dating popular rich girl Naomi but cheating on her. On lacrosse team with Dixon. And he surfs. Could be a lot cuter.

Naomi: Rich and spoiled, but has an implied depth. Initially nice to Annie, but then turns on her. Dating Ethan, but hooks up with a lacrosse teammate once she learns that Ethan has cheated on her.

Silver: the “indie chick.” Runs a super catty blog. Used to be BFF with Naomi until Silver’s dad cheated on her mom, she confided in Naomi, and Naomi told everyone. The two now hate one another. After a brief period of friction, Silver befriends new girl Annie. Silver is also Kelly Taylor’s sister. At first I thought her name was an obvious nod to David Silver, but didn’t Kelly’s mom and David’s dad end up together? And if so, wouldn’t this girl’s name be Silver Silver? It boggles the mind.



Navid: reporter for the school newspaper and Dixon’s new BFF. Dad is a famous porn producer.



Adriana: drama-club girl, Naomi’s friend, drug addict. Says she supports her family with money made from bit parts in films.



Ty: extremely wealthy, extraordinarily pretty. Like a cross between Chace Crawford and Tom Welling. Lead in the school musical. Likes Annie, and flies her to San Francisco on his private jet for their first date.



Mr. Matthews (Ryan): Hottie McHotsalot English teacher. Funny, goofball personality. Has a thing for Kelly Taylor.



Kelly Taylor: school guidance counselor. Has a 4-year-old son. We don’t know who the dad is, unless we do from the original 90210 and it’s just me who doesn’t know. Kelly is Silver’s sister.

Also, not pictured on the CW site, we have…

George: in looks, a total Steve Sanders. Curly blonde hair, biceps, polo shirts. However, this guy is a class-A jock asshole and a lacrosse player whom Dixon beats out for a spot on the team.

Tracy: Naomi’s mom and Harry’s ex from high school. Within the first hour she drops the bomb that she got pregnant with Harry’s kid and secretly gave it up for adoption. Thankfully he tells Celia immediately, but the premiere ends without them making a clear decision about what to do.

You know you’re getting old when Rob Estes is the hottest male on a teen show.



The actual plotlines were not very interesting so I’ll spare you. It is clear that the main thrust of the show (or at least this season) is the “will they-won’t they” relationship between Annie and Ethan. A quick recap: the two met a few years back while she was visiting Grandma, and he kissed her. She is excited to see him again, but almost immediately discovers him getting a BJ from a girl who is not his girlfriend. She is then inadvertently responsible for Naomi finding out. After an attempted reconciliation, Ethan realizes he doesn’t want Naomi anymore, and goes to talk to Annie. She tells him about her date with Ty, he tells her about breaking up with Naomi.

Then, they reminisce about the first time they met, and how they won an octopus in a bottle-tossing game. She asks what happened to it, he says “it probably dissolved or something.” Now, come on. What is this octopus made of, gelatin? At that moment it is clear that Ethan has been cherishing the octopus for the past two years. And sure enough, in the sweetly heartbreaking finale, Ethan comes bouncing up the Wilson’s driveway, octopus in hand, only to find Annie and Ty kissing on the front steps.

An ending sure to win over my grizzled heart? Yes. But overall this premiere didn’t do much for me. Shockingly, I felt that the music was seriously lacking. Perhaps I was spoiled by the OC. Hans, who enjoyed the premiere, called it “a delicious guilty pleasure,” but I’m not sure the pleasure was worth the guilt. What did you guys think?

OTHER NOTES
I am discomfited to see that the incestuous overtones between bro & sis have crossed over – B&B used to have nightly chats in their underwear, A&D do it lying next to each other in bed.

The Peach Pit, still owned by Nat, is now a coffee shop/diner with a clean, elegant new logo. All the high school kids hang out there.

In journalism class, a girl introduces herself as “Hannah Zuckerman-Vasquez.” Then there’s a really stupid joke about her looking 30.

Brenda returns to town “for a play.” She and Kelly are delighted to see each other. While catching up, Brenda says that Brandon is “in Belize,” but they don’t mention anyone else.

SDYWAWOL

This summer I have been totally lackadaisical about this blog, and I feel bad about it. Not that bad, but still. However, now that the fall season is starting up, expect to see a lot more going on here at SDYW. Here are the shows on our radar this season:

90210
ANTM Cycle 11
Dollhouse
Do Not Disturb
Friday Night Lights
Fringe
Gossip Girl
How I Met Your Mother
Kath & Kim
Life On Mars
Reaper
Supernatural
The Ex List
The Office

Since I still have no TiVo, this will be interesting...