Tuesday, November 28, 2006

A Guy's Dream Girl?

I was never a fan of "Sex & The City." The few times I bothered to watch it over the years seemed to be nothing but bashing men, and most of the 2-dimensional men who appeared on the show seemed to be bash-worthy.

Admittedly, my sample size of "SATC" is pretty minute, so feel free to disagree with me entirely.

I bring this up only because tonight marks the debut of "My Boys" (TBS, 10 p.m.), a sitcom centered around a female sports writer (Jordana Spiro) and her guy friends. Spiro, who plays P.J., would rather watch sports, drink beer and play poker than do the traditional "girl" things, and navigates the ins and outs of relationships with her guy friends.

"My Boys" has gotten a lot of positive buzz as a sort of inverted "SATC," but I'm going to give it a shot anyway, if for no other reason than to see how why none of P.J.'s guy friends aren't hitting on a good-looking blond who likes sports and cards. Well, that and how the noble profession of sports writing is depicted (we're the profession of Grantland Rice and Ring Lardner Sr., for those who would snicker).

"My Boys" is the first original comedy produced by TBS, and in an age where the sitcom seems to be a dying art form, it will be interesting to see how it fares. It doesn't bother me that it appears on TBS, formerly the home to reruns and Atlanta Braves games, since TBS' sister network, TNT, has had a decent track record in producing original drama with the critically acclaimed and highly rated "The Closer."

HEROES REVISITED: OK, so my cool idea on who Sylar really is was way off. It was still a cool idea.

(For those that didn't bother to e-mail me, I thought Sylar might be a future version of Peter, who met up with Niki while she was in Jessica mode. In the future, Peter might be able to retain the power of the others after he had met them, and evil Peter would use Hiro's space-time power to travel back.)

I might have been helped if I knew about Jessica and we had seen Sylar's face before, but regardless, last night's "Heroes" was one of the cooler hours of TV this season, expertly interweaving the flashbacks with the current storylines.

Once again, a reminder to those who want to catch up, Sci-Fi is re-running the first 10 episodes of the series on Wednesday, a good way to get in on the action before Monday's final first-run episode before the Christmas break.

WEEDS RENEWED: Showtime has picked up the critically acclaimed "Weeds" for a third season. The network will air 15 episodes in the spring of 2007.

TUESDAY'S BEST BET: In addition to "My Boys," Tuesday also marks the debut of the sitcom "Big Day" (ABC, 9 p.m.) "Big Day" borrows the structure of "24," in which all of the episodes take place within a single day, during which an engaged couple begins the final preparations for their wedding.

One wonders how the show will be in Season 4 should it survive so long; will it still be the wedding day, or will the couple have moved on to marriage?

"Friday Night Lights" (NBC, 8 p.m.) returns after a week's hiatus. Tonight's episode is fairly key, as Jason confronts Tim and Smash seeks a way to pay for steroids.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the reminder about Heroes on SciFi. I'll set my DVR when I get home tonight. I missed a few episodes early on.

I thought last night's episode was great in a fill-in-the-blank sort of way. I still think the show is a bit derivative, but very entertaining. I love how almost no one is pure good or pure evil - even Sylar.

As for 'My Boys,' I'll watch just for Jim Gaffigan, who has done some hilarious stand-up comedy. I just hope they make P.J. work more often than Ray Barrone. I'm not buying the sportswriter thing until I see her pulling 14-hour days, working every weekend and cussing like a sailor at her laptop when it fritzes out with 10 minutes to go until deadline.

Phillip Ramati said...

No problem. Heroes is one of those shows that you may have to see more than once anyway to get all the clues and nuances.

Jim Gaffigan is great. Sports writers on TV tend not to do a lot of work; Oscar Madison didn't go to a lot of games, either.

And you're right, I don't see how being a sports writer will help P.J.'s social life any since she is working nights and weekends. I never had the free time to play poker until after I stopped being a sports writer.

Phillip Ramati said...

I watched a bit more than 5 minutes of SATC, and my comments stand. If you liked it, more power to you. You are certainly in the majority.

I don't think Sylar's resemblence to Clark Kent is much more than coincidence, because in a show full of gray characters - people we aren't sure if they are good guys or bad guys - Sylar is clearly the villain.