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Also this issue: Rethink, Reuse Icepack |
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May 29-June 4, 2003
naked city
Rating the week in TV
Sunnydale Bites It You could hear sobs all over the country, or at least all over my living room, when Buffy slayed her last. A few worthy moments from the carnage: the (unfortunately awkward) re-creation of a Scooby moment from season one, when Willow, One-Eyed Xander, Buffy and Giles share a bit of pre-battle banter that causes Giles to exclaim, "The Earth is definitely doomed"; Anya's did-that-really-just-happen death -- truly double-take-inducing; and a few glimmers of genuinely exciting battle scenes, which have been missing from the show since the gang's high-school graduation. Now begins a new fight: Buffy fans must raise an army to stop a Dawn-centric spinoff. From beneath us she annoys.
Beep … Beep … Beep … Though 24 seemed set for a blockbuster climax and Buffy's penultimate episode was a semi-snoozer, the two Tuesday-night shows flip-flopped expectations. Buffy more or less pulled out of its seventh-season slump, while 24, the most consistently exciting show on television, weighed in with an astonishingly flat climax. Around the half-hour mark, I turned to my sweetie and asked, "Is anything going to happen?" For a show that regularly pulls rabbits out of habits, 24's climax was strictly by the numbers: day saved, bad guy foiled, next please. Only a last-minute twist that seemed to sideline both lead characters for next season -- assuming it continues immediately after this one, which with the president felled by a mysterious biological agent, it would almost have to -- saved us from total predictability. (And it was good to see that parachuting lesbian from the first season again, no?) Critics who carp about 24's implausibility are just denying themselves the pleasures of a first-rate serial whose willingness to depict the unthinkable just keeps growing. And they beat The West Wing to the 25th Amendment by three weeks.
Ruuuben … So much to say about the last American Idol show of 2003. Or so little, really. The insipid medleys with the top 10 rejects. The conspicuous absence of Marine Josh Gracin from these Mouseketeer revues since his dismissal (active duty calls). Ruben and Clay looking really nervous for the first time this season -- Ruben sweating under the hot lights, Clay looking more wan than usual. And the controversy over the counts, with Ryan Seacrest claiming the show's accountant was drunk (must've been out with Paula at the pre-party). Let's face it: The producers should have gone right to the "bad singers" montage, though seeing Keith "The Worst Singer in the World" Beukelaer caterwaul and slut his way through "Like A Virgin" again was worth the wait.
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