The triumphant return of "Television Snippets" has arrived. Not only am I past a 3,000 mile move from one coast of the US to another, but the Fall season has completely wrapped up, the Olympics have come and gone, and the Spring season is officially back. Sure, I could have come back in January, but shows only came back for 3 weeks or so before the Olympics, so I figured I'd wait until now.
Note: I won't be talking about ratings this week because of the Olympics (the last time I'll mention them, I promise).
So let's do this.
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Nip/Tuck just aired its last episode. It was a shockingly subdued season, focusing more on the relationship between Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon). Instead of chaos, murder, mayhem, racist abusing tranvestites, or severe drug addiction, this season showed us the final deterioration of McNamara/Troy. While on first thought, the season seemed lackluster and dull, in hindsight, it was a fitting end to a show that has basically done all there is to do. They've killed countless people, smuggled drugs, decapitated wives, dealt with suicide, prison rape, serial killers... the list is endless. In the end, they give us two men at the heart of the show and the toll their years of insane living have eventually caused. Still underwhelming, but the finale was touching, at the very least.
Glee will be returning on April 13, 2010. Arguably the biggest return remaining this Spring, since American Idol (which I won't speak of) and LOST (which I will) have already premiered, Glee is full of guest stars. The biggest is Madonna, who will be on an all-Madonna-songs episode. There aren't many details about her guest appearance at this time, but some genius in the casting department just made the marketing of the show even easier than its Golden Globe win and fantastic freshman season (so far) already have.
In addition to Madonna, Kristen Chenowith will return, Olivia Newton-John will appear, Jonathan Groff will take a role, and Idina Menzel, Wicked's own Elphaba, will be appearing in at least a couple episodes. She is also rumored to potentially be yet another hurdle in the budding relationship of Emma (Jayma Mays) and Will (Matthew Morrison).
LOST is back for its final season and it is showing no signs of giving us anything less than we'd expect: totally crazy storylines that leave you guessing what will happen next and, even more importantly, how the heck they'll wrap anything up in a way that makes any sense.
This season has already given us some huge answers—the purpose of the numbers, significance to our favorite Losties, connections from the past, and a bizarro world that is yielding new questions. That said, the producers have promised us that "alterverse" LOST timeline will coincide with the events on the Island. So, work your magic, Lindelof and Cuse. Explain Zombie Sayid, let's have some Kate and Claire bitchslapping, tell us if Ben is going to save the island he loves so much, and give us more of what we've grown to love about LOST.
NBC—after a mindblowingly frustrating, angering, and upsetting decision to remove Conan O'Brien from The Tonight Show—spent the entirety of the Olympics (damn, I mentioned it again) promoting their new 10 PM time slot availability. Having ranted about this for months (especially their foolish decision to give a show like Southland up to another network), I take only small comfort in knowing that NBC now has a chance to use 10 PM in a wise fashion that isn't horrifically unintentionally unfunny. 10 PM is a sacred time for networks (other than FOX), where they can appeal to their adult viewers and have grittier shows that tend to push the network envelope. Let's hope now NBC can focus on programming instead of cutting corners (which is what lead us to the Leno 10 PM disaster in the first place. Just retire, Chin).
Speaking of Leno, have you seen the Hulu page for the "new" Tonight Show?
Bristol Palin will be guest starring as herself on The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Great, guys. Take a show that glorifies sex as being a horrific sin (that makes you a mother, a whore, or a murderer of your parents) and put a hypocrite on. I've never had any love for this show (thank you JPP for giving me the, er, pleasure of reviewing a season) and the continued celebrity of the Palin family—especially on a show that I already consider dangerous—is frustrating. If you're going to do it, just use a condom, kids.
Project Runway is having a good season. After the embarrassment of the previous season, dull with designers and challenges that weren't memorable, it is nice to know that the move to Lifetime hasn't destroyed Project Runway as I had feared. Back in New York with a great group of designers and interesting challenges, the show isn't dead in the water, a strong showing after the disappointment of last Fall.
In the most recent episode, the designers were taken to a hardware store. This led to one of the most remarkably dichotomous episodes of Project Runway I've seen. One one hand, we have Mila Hermanovski taking plastic paint trays and turning them into a stunning black and white dress. On the other hand, we have Emilio Sosa making some stringy hardware bikini... thing... that doesn't resemble anything a woman would usually wear on a beach or a runway. The winner, Jay Nicolas Sario, took garbage bags and gave us magic. Project Runway has done trashbag challenges before, but at no point in the history of the show have we had something as stunning and rack-ready as Jay's beautiful "leather" pants and stylish top. The person kicked off the show (Jesse LeNoir) created a poorly made and envisioned piece that may have been better than Emilio's, but was the the last nail in the coffin for a designer who had shown a few weak designs previously.
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So that's about it. I know we're a little light this week, but many shows haven't returned yet and will in a couple weeks. There have been a couple pick ups but most announcements will come later in the season, and the Oscars are on this weekend, monopolizing a lot of the media news. Leave a comment with any shows you may want me to cover in the future, thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week.
