I make no secret of the fact that I love Gossip Girl. Sure, the show’s first season had a somewhat rocky start, but I’ve been an unabashed fan for quite some time now, and it is with difficulty that I attempt an objective review of the show’s second season. Let’s face it — we don’t watch this show for its artistic quality. Still, it is my blogging duty to make the attempt, and so today I grade Gossip Girl’s return.

1. Compared to previous season: Considering that the first season began with such heavy-handed subplots as Eric’s attempted suicide and the Humpreys’ broken family woes, it actually had lots of room for improvement, and season one saw the show come into its own. Basically, it decided to stop attempting anything that could be vaguely viewed as real life drama and embraced its soapy nature instead, complete with manipulative villains and enthusiastic bed-hopping. Season two has more than continued this trend, without inflicting a single realistic plot upon us — and that’s the way I like it. Grade: A.

2. Returning characters: Again, season two is simply continuing the good work begun in the first season, with one advantage. Now that the show has had the chance to define the characters and their pasts a bit more, we’re not stuck with any transparently expository episodes (such as finding out that Serena slept with Nate for no reason that made any sense. At all. Ever). The characters themselves are a bit more interesting — Serena is being allowed to act more like a fierce she-bitch than a lost beagle, Blair continues to walk her tightrope of neuroses and power, and Chuck is the most magnificent bastard seen on TV in the last ten years. Even Vanessa has a bit more to do this year than pine over Dan. The weak link remains Nate. There has been a vapid pretty boy on every soap since the beginning of time, and I have no idea why. The poor thing doesn’t stand a chance of keeping up with Blair or Chuck. Hell, even Jenny out-thinks him on a daily basis. And we’re supposed to believe he’s going to Dartmouth? Grade: A-

3. New characters: Thankfully, there’s not a lot to talk about here. The show’s got a long ways to go before it needs to bring in new, younger, naughtier blood, and the main cast has remained stable in its second season. However, the guest stars have been hit and miss so far. Madchen Amick’s dastardly duchess was a bit one-note, all teeth and claws, but it was an admittedly fun note. Blair’s English lord boyfriend was nothing more than a pawn in the unending battle royale between Blair and Chuck, and the trouble-making new girl wasn’t even on the show long enough for me to remember her name. Basically, everyone who’s not in the main credits has been little more than a prop, only there to further develop the relationships between the leads. There’s no point in becoming invested in characters that won’t be around in two weeks’ time, so I’d rather see the leads interact on their own, or with secondary characters that are actually given the time to find a personality. Grade: C+

4. Current plots. I am a shallow, shallow person, and so of course I like the current plots, which are all shiny and superficial. Because this is a teen soap, we all knew that Serena and Dan were bound to break up, but the show has actually used the inevitable heartbreak to mix it up a bit, returning Serena to her Queen S ways. The Chuck and Blair Show continues, and if ever the CW wants to do a spin-off, I’d happily watch a half-hour comedy starring those two (of course, if they left, it would kill GG dead, so there would be a downside). Granted, I couldn’t care less about anything Nate does, and Jenny’s rebellion is rather pointless, so it’s not all puppies, rainbows and hot limo sex, but overall, it’s pretty solid. And, for all that I mock the show as being a glorious soap, it still manages to infuse genuine emotion into its preposterous plot, putting it miles ahead of every other teen show currently on the air. Grade: B+

Overall grade: B+

a

I hate British soaps. Eastenders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, the late, lamented Brookside, even that young upstart soap, Hollyoaks. I hate them all. And what is more, I cannot for the life of me fathom why everybody else doesn’t hate them as well.

But Eastenders regularly attracts in the region of 8.4 million viewers for every revolting episode. It’s nearest soapy rival, Coronation Street, draws around 7.3 million. What is up with my fellow countrymen? It seriously boggles my mind, because honestly, I would rather eat my own toenail clippings than watch either one of them. And yet, lovely Pop Vultures readers, I have eschewed a toenail snack, tempting though it was, and just for you, I forced myself to sit through an episode of Britain’s most popular soap, the BBC’s Eastenders.

Here is the one good thing I have to say about it: I quite like the theme tune.

It’s not cultural snobbery. I mean, it’s really not. I love trashy telly! Trashy telly is fun, enjoyable, and escapist. British soaps are none of those things. The reason I hate them is that they’re so relentlessly depressing. Nothing good ever happens to anybody, ever. If a nice thing does actually occur, it is only so that it can be cruelly and ironically snatched away. The rest of the time it’s poverty, racisim, abuse, assault, petty theft, the occasional murder, lies, secrets, and betrayals. Even Christmas parties are just preludes to horrific accidents. How the whole cast of characters don’t collectively throw themselves off the nearest bridge is beyond me.

In the episode of Eastenders I so selflessly sat through, there was: food poisoning; child abuse; some bloke hiding a gun under a sink for no-doubt nefarious purposes; a controlling boyfriend; and a bad case of chicken pox. There was one young married couple who seemed reasonably happy together, but in Eastenders you know that just means something indescribably terrible is going to happen to them, probably before the end of the episode. After all that, it’s a bloody good job that the theme tune is peppy.

At least American soaps are glamorous. I know they’re hopelessly unrealistic, but I’d far rather spend my leisure time following the lives and loves of millionaire oil barons than keeping track of the grim realities of life in Albert Square. And don’t think it’s just Eastenders either. All British soaps are cut from the same, gritty-urban-reality cloth. Coronation Street follows a similar formula up north, and Emmerdale does it in rural Yorkshire.  And my toenail clippings are starting to look remarkably appetising.

Feel free to leap to the defence of the denizens of Albert Square and their ilk in the comments.

a

To be fair to the show, it’s nowhere near as dreadful as I thought it would be. In fact, there’s an awful lot to like about it. Joanna Garcia is quite charming in the role of Megan Smith, a character whose sole traits are “plucky” and “quirky,” and she manages to turn what is essentially a stereotype into someone the audience wants to relate to. In fact, the the cast overall is quite solid.

The problem is that the actors are given very little to work with. Stop me when this sounds familiar. We have the rebellious teenage girl who’s really just covering her pain, and the distant, successful grandmother who does not know how to express her love. There’s the working class local boy who’s sure to develop a crush on the lead, and the wealthy boy next door with hidden depths. The show is set in glamorous Palm Beach, where everyone seems to have more money than morals. This ringing any bells yet? Every teen show ever, you say? Exactly.

It’s not that the show is bad. It does make an effort to avoid the typical shallow plots of teen dramas and tries to establish some complex relationships, particularly between Megan and her sister. In the end, though, it’s just not enough. There is such a glut of teen fare currently on TV that any new show must do something fresh to stand out, and everything about this show feels like it’s been done before — and done better. If you haven’t had your fill of cheesy teen drama, by all means you should watch this series. It’s a familiar, fluffy bit of escapism, and it’s sure to become more heart-warming as the season progresses and Megan slowly but surely manages to win over her bratty charges.

If, however, you are reaching your teen soap threshold, this is one to skip. Really, you won’t be giving up anything you haven’t seen before.

a

Tuesday marked the premiere of one of the most buzzed-about shows of the fall season, 90210, and the reception has been notably lukewarm. Tepid. Possibly even a bit bored.

I understand that everyone was expecting a bit more, which makes sense. The original Beverly Hills 90210 was a cultural milestone, the show an entire generation grew up with. It was also, I would like to point out, absolutely terrible in its first two seasons.

Really, if you’re blinded by nostalgia, take a look back at what was. The show began as a serious family show with only slightly more street cred than 7th Heaven. All that lovely soapiness that we remember now — the Kelly/Brenda/Dylan triangle, for instance — didn’t kick in till the third season, when the show was influenced by the far naughtier Melrose Place. The pilot episode featured such excellent plots as “David wrecks Steve’s car!” and “Middle-aged teachers we’ll never see again attempt to flirt!” Subsequent episodes included such exciting twists as “Brandon coaches a little league team!” and “Brenda works at a teen help line!” The show was often painfully, excruciatingly earnest in its early days. Read through a few of the recaps if you’re unconvinced.

With this in mind, Tuesday’s plot involving pigs in school jerseys really doesn’t seem quite so asinine. As for the acting, which has also been widely panned, I offer two words: Tori Spelling. Oh, let’s make it four words: James Eckhouse. And if you’re going to complain about the stock characters, consider the source material, which included the geeky freshman (David), the James Dean rebel (Dylan), the stuck up rich girl (Kelly), and more poor little rich girls than you could fit into Fred Segal. Does the new 90210 lose points on believability, with its “blogisodes” and a mother who stepped directly from Kansas into a high powered fashion job? Of course. But try watching Dylan — the hardened alcholic — get drunk off two small bottles of airplane booze and then talk about realistic portrayals. You can call the new show trite and clichéd (and you’d be right), but the old one started off the exact same way, though with quite a bit less implied oral sex.

I’m not going to pretend the new show is good, but perhaps it’s time to stop pretending that the old one was a work of genius. However, it is an undeniable pop culture icon, and the new 90210 has a long ways to go before it will fill its predecessors immense Jimmy Choos.

Did you watch the premiere? What did you think, and will you give it another chance next Tuesday?

a

Today is, of course, a holiday in the US, and I don’t mean that obscure holiday known as “Labor Day.” Hell, most people can’t even say exactly what is being celebrated. However, any TV fan knows that today is the start of the new fall season, and that is definitely cause for celebration.

While there are several news shows on tonight, it’s not the new Prison Break or One Tree Hill that have me so excited. Prison Break is so far past its prime that it has acquired the television version of arthritis, and whatever happens on One Tree Hill is sure to be silly and completely implausible. I’ll still watch them, of course, because I am a shameless television addict, but they’re not good enough reasons to welcome fall’s return of rain and dark days. However, Gossip Girl is also back on the air tonight, and that’s cause for a party.

Gossip Girl has come a long way from its first episodes at this time last year. It was a silly teen soap then, and it’s a silly teen soap now, but this year it seems to have settled into its skin a bit more. I’ve been lucky enough to see the first three episodes, and I’m happy to report that the show picks up right where it left off.

Last year, the show started slowly, introducing characters and building relationships that we didn’t really care about. It was rather hard to care about Blair’s desperate attempts to keep Nate when it was obvious to everyone, up to and including my mother, my cats, and the dust bunnies hiding under my sofa, that he wasn’t nearly good enough for her delicious self. It took a while for the show to establish the chemistry between the various characters and to find the right pacing for the various plot twists and turns.

Season two, however, seems to have figured it all out quite nicely. The show relies on the fact that we know the characters well enough that we don’t need any more dreadful devices like “Serena’s brother attempted suicide!” to help us warm to them. While the show originally tried to balance on the line between soap and drama, this year it’s lurched far over to the soap opera side while still keeping one dainty pinky toe on the drama side to help ground it. In other words, the show is just damn fun.

It was awfully fun before, watching the social machinations of these Upper East Siders within the microcosm of their high school, but it’s even more fun when they add gigolos, blackmail, and preposterous English lords. It’s over the top and completely unbelievable, but it makes for some seriously good television. Still, what sets it apart from other teen soaps is the consistency of the characters. Unlike One Tree Hill, which asks its leads to completely change their personalities to match whatever plotline the writers throw at them, the Gossip Girl leads remain constant, with time revealing complexity rather than contradictions. This elevates the show beyond its teen soap brethren. Plus, the dialogue is genuinely witty. I may feel dirty for watching OTH, but I look forward to each new episode of Gossip Girl. In fact, after watching the first three episodes, I’m a bit grumpy that there are only 19 left this year, and that’s a pretty good sign that the show’s on the right track.

Anyone else skipping the Labor Day bbq to watch Gossip Girl? Which characters will keep you tuning in week after week?

a

But oh, is it bad. So terribly, horribly, fantastically bad. It’s so bad it crosses the line back into fabulous. I’ve heard comparisons to the Melrose Place glory days, though I wouldn’t go that far. Until someone returns from the dead to reclaim their former lover and rips off their perfect wig to reveal a skull criss-crossed with brain surgery scars, it can’t claim to be in the same league. However, the show does feature a 22-year-old who not only has her own major fashion label, but her own national magazine, and she recently decided that, despite being single and, you know, 22, she needed to adopt a child. Not enough? How about a famous author AND high school basketball coach, or a former rock star/current English teacher who somehow finds time, between marking papers and raising a family, to also produce a hit album for her friend’s indie record label? This show isn’t just removed from reality; it saw reality approaching and decided to hit it with a Mach truck before reversing over it several times, leaving it gasping and defeated. Still, while reality may have no place on One Tree Hill, the show has fun, and I can respect that (even if I don’t entirely respect myself for watching). The show owns its ridiculousness, and if you can embrace that, it’s a damn good time.

Plus, it’s got basketball. That may not mean much to you, but a good basketball game is one of the things I miss about the US (along with Mexican food, top shelf bourbon, and really big trees), and there are some pretty good basketball moments on the show. Also, I just found out this week that James Lafferty (who plays the briefly paralyzed, borderline alcoholic Nathan) and other stars of the show are holding their annual charity basketball game this Saturday in Wilmington, NC, with the proceeds benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the Wilmington Family YMCA, and Winnie’s Garden, which provides support for animal shelters and homeless pets. I may not take the show seriously, but I do take the welfare of pets and children very seriously, and am happy to help publicize this event – even if it does mean breaking my silence of shame.

Any other One Tree Hill viewers want to ‘fess up? Or do you have your own secrets to admit? Come on, we’re all friends here.

a

Doctors
Premise: A soap set in the fictional Mill Health Centre.

Oh, Doctors, you are so brilliantly, genius-ly rubbish. This show only airs in the daytime during the week, when I am supposed to be at work, but if I am ever working from home and looking for distractions I am always delighted to stumble across it. Oh, the wobbly scenery, oh the melodrama, oh the piss-poor acting! Infidelity is rife, everybody’s keeping salacious secrets, there are alcoholics and porn addicts and doctors accidentally sleeping with prostitutes and nobody ever really seems to give a crap about any of the (rarely seen) patients. It is fabulous stuff, and quite the best accompaniment to ironing that I know.

Antiques Roadshow
Premise: The show travels around the country (hence the name) and wherever it stops people bring random dusty relics that they found in their attics to be examined by experts. Every once in a while, a priceless antique is discovered, but this doesn’t happen very often.

I love The Antiques Roadshow. It reminds me of early Sunday evenings in winter, sitting in the living room with my Dad, eating our dinner on our knees. Dad always completely missed the point by saying things like ‘That table’s get a scratch in it. You could get a much nicer one at Ikea.’ Nothing bad ever happens, there is rarely any excitement, almost all of the people are in their fifties and wearing sensible shoes, and the same thing happens over and over again. It goes like this: visitor shows dusty relic to expert; expert talks about relic and makes admiring noises; visitor tells amazed expert that their dad bought relic in a junk shop for three pence back in 1939; expert tells visitor relic is now worth at least £150; visitor gasps politely. And then they move onto someone else and the same thing happens all over again. This is the ultimate in comfort telly.

Ready Steady Cook
Premise: Two contestants bring a bag of ingredients bought for £7.50 or less, and work with a celebrity chef to create a gourmet meal in twenty minutes, using only the ingredients they brought plus some culinary basics like milk, herbs, and olive oil. The audience votes for the winner.

I have always loved shows in which other people work frantically while I sit slumped on the sofa doing nothing. It’s very soothing. Ready Steady Cook is perfect for this because it’s Speed Cooking! And there are always lots of pans involved and frantic chopping and things accidentally catching on fire and the stupid contestants keep messing things up for the chefs, who can’t swear because it’s daytime television. And then at the end of it all they’ve miraculously produced some delicious gourmet three-course meal which would probably take me a whole day. Meanwhile all I’ve done is further embed my arse-print in the sofa. Like I said, it’s oddly soothing.

So, what are your comfort television picks, US or UK? And can you put your finger on why you like them?

a

Britain’s ITV has a strange habit when it comes to drama. They’ll happily trundle on for years producing undemanding Sunday night ‘family’ viewing, then suddenly drop something rather original and special into the mix. They launched the two-hour drama show with Inspector Morse (then followed up with Prime Suspect) and went all sci-fi with Primeval. Now, they’ve delivered something very odd indeed…two shows for the price of one.

The idea behind Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach isn’t at all bad. The first tells the behind-the-scenes story of a popular ’soap’ drama, while the second shows the actual drama itself, a teen-filled Home & Away style show set in Cornwall. We’ve seen something along these lines in The Larry Sanders Show and Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive, where the off-camera material is woven into the supposed ‘real’ show and the madness of TV gets played to the fore.

So what’s the difference this time? Well, put simply, the show that’s meant to be getting mocked, Echo Beach, is better than the show doing the mocking. The supposedly satire-laden, madcap glimpse behind the scenes isn’t satirical, madcap or indeed funny. Ben Miller, as noxious TV producer Jonathan Pope, heads a cast of characters as thin as the walls on Prisoner Cell Block H in a series of heavy-handed, sub-The Office workplace scenes that actually make the fresh air, smart dialogue and sharp writing of Echo Beach something to look forward to. I’ve no doubt the idea was to create a ’so bad it’s good’ soap, but despite the deadening presence of ex-Eastender Martine McCutcheon in a key role, the (real-life) producers have roundly failed to fail.

My prediction? Echo Beach will live on long after this Moving Wallpaper’s been painted over.

a

3. Emerson Cod. I could describe Emerson Cod, but the man himself can do a better job of it. These lines work best when you picture them dryly spoken by a very tall and permanently annoyed man:

• The truth ain’t like puppies, a bunch of them running around, you pick your favorite.
• Future Me is saying ‘I told you so’ all upside your head…but Now Me is standing here quietly.
• Someone in love is like a gangsta. They be like, ‘Oh baby, you bleeding. How did that happen?’ while they’re hiding the razor in their weave.
• Just because there’s vodka in my freezer doesn’t mean I need to drink it. Wait…yes it does.
• Well, that idea might make a stupid idea feel better about itself.

As long as Chi McBride is rocking Emerson Cod, I can’t stop watching.

2. Miranda Bailey. She is the heart and soul of the very silly Grey’s Anatomy and the only reason I can still respect myself for watching. (Yes, I know I’m trying to break up with this show, but these things take time.) Cassandra Wilson plays Bailey with so much sass, heart, backbone, and all around style that she mows down anyone in her path. The other actors look like bemused amateurs when Wilson gets going. Don’t tell my mom, but I’m secretly hoping Bailey adopts me some day. She would have my entire life sorted out within two days — and then move on to my friends.

1. Phil Keoghan. Sure, he’s the host of The Amazing Race, but he’s always forced to take a backseat to the racers. And yet, Keoghan is the grounding force behind the show. When he appears on screen, all wind-blown hair and rugged good looks, it’s obvious the true adventurer has arrived. The only reason the teams have a chance of winning is that Keoghan is contractually bound not to compete. Otherwise, they’d surely find themselves eating his dust as he sailed past on a horse-drawn chariot that he was driving backwards while doing a headstand and eating the live grubs considered a delicacy among some South American tribes. Come on, this is the man who broke the world record for bungee-jumping and who rested atop an erupting volcano to eat his lunch. The winning team may win a million dollars, but they’ll never be as cool as Phil.

What do you think? Which secondary characters — past and present — rule the shows and school the leads?

a

Because, no matter how much I try not to, I will watch it. I can’t help it. It’s a mostly competent teen soap opera featuring actors of at least legal age, so I don’t feel too dirty if I think the bad thoughts (despite the fact that I could, technically, be the mother of the actor playing Dan Humphrey). It’s shiny. It’s shameless. It’s silly. It’s everything mindless entertainment should be…except for one small detail. They haven’t perfected the cat fight.

Seriously, what was up with that last night? There is our supposed heroine, Serena van der Woodsen, going toe-to-toe with her arch-nemesis, the scheming Blair Waldorf (see what I mean about shameless? The names!) and…crying? Begging for forgiveness? Whimpering and behaving in a quietly self-sacrificing way? What kind of a cat fight is that?

In order to help this show maintain its position as the best option for bubble gum drama, I helpfully present the Aaron Spelling Guide to a Successful Cat Fight, which this show would do well to study.

Rule #1: You must have an indomitable will. There is no sniveling, no begging for mercy, NO giving up. It doesn’t matter if you are cast as the good girl (see: Brenda Walsh) or the Devious Diva of Deceitville (Amanda Woodward), you never let some other bitch win, whether the prize is the hot new boy, the career-making job or the last piece of cake. It all belongs to you. Now, own it.

Rule #2: Do not be afraid of physical violence. This includes, but is not limited to: slapping, hair-pulling, pushing them down stairs or throwing them into the conveniently-located pool. Bonus points if they are wearing something you KNOW you would look better in, so you damn well better find a way to get it off their skanky body.

Rule #3: There is no strategy too underhanded if it gets you what you want. Faked pregnancy, deleted voicemails, brain surgery, employment at a strip club — these are all viable options in desperate situations. Or if you’re just bored that night and looking for some distraction.

Rule #4: It is never about a man. That may be the catalyst that kicks off the fight, and it might be the prize at the end of it, but it’s never the focal point. The fight is merely another chance to demonstrate your Alpha Bitch superiority, to flex those Machiavellian muscles before they atrophy. You fight for the pure joy of it. Why would you need to fight for some guy when you have a queue of applicants already lined up around the block?

Rule #5: If you can rock a turban, you’re already halfway to victory.

That’s all there is to it. So, if I don’t see Blair and Serena drenched to the waist in some Central Park pond by mid-season, with their turbans artfully askew as they rip each other’s Marc Jacobs finery from limb to limb, I’m taking myself to Lipstick Jungle in January. Don’t think I won’t do it. Aaron Spelling taught me all about indomitable will.

What did Aaron Spelling teach you?

a