14 posts tagged “gossip girl”

Mondays used to be so sparse when it came to watching TV, especially after Prison Break became so ludicrous that I abandoned it. (Speaking of, the fact that they're bringing the supposedly-beheaded Sara back next season is kind of insulting to even semi-intelligent TV viewers everywhere.)

After a craptastic week and a weekend that saw lots of sleeping and lots of watching movies that make me somber (Atonement, Juno, Speak, In the Land of Women) and/or that are just plain depressing with no redemptive quality that I can think of, except for the Tracy/Chris storyline that was far, far too short (Into the Wild), I'm definitely looking forward to the return of the last of the shows affected by the writer's strike.

Except the schedule's been majorly shifted around.

Tomorrow alone brings brand-spanking-new episodes of Gossip Girl, Bones, and House, all three of which I watch, in addition to Dancing With the Stars (seriously, what is up with me and reality TV this season?) and Medium.

Tuesdays are less crowded now that House and Bones have jumped to Mondays -- other than American Idol, I watch NCIS and Women's Murder Club (which returns April 29).

Ditto with Wednesdays: just one non-Idol show in Criminal Minds.

Thursdays are jam-packed now that both Grey's and Lost have returned, because in addition to both of those, I still watch The Office, Scrubs, CSI and Without a Trace. Yeah. That's a lot of TV in one night. Thank God for TiVo (especially since Grey's, The Office and CSI are all on at the same time.)

I'm trying to get into Moonlight, which is on Fridays, but that's the only thing I watch that day after never being able to quite get into Ghost Whisperer and getting tired of Num3ers.

On Sundays is yet another (awesome) Bruckheimer criminal procedural in Cold Case. 

ETA: Well, crap. If I have LOST on the list, then I have to put Veronica Mars on the list. It just feels like VM's been gone a lot longer. Naturally, it ties with LOST.

So Kristin just posted her Top 10 shows of 2007 and because I am nothing if not a stalker follower (seriously, isn't there some saying out there about imitation being the best form of flattery or something?), I thought I'd post my list as well.

Except...it's really a lot harder than I expected. For one, we are in total agreement about our top show -- okay, it's #2 for her, but I don't have Showtime and when I did, found Dexter to be way too bloody for my taste -- but the little dilemma is that it hasn't aired this season. Technically, it did air in 2007, but if that's the case, then I'd have to move shows like Grey's Anatomy and Heroes higher, because they rocked the last half of last season. Not so much the first part of this season.

What to do, what to do...

Screw it, it's Damon and Carlton.

Okay, now that that dilemma's been settled, here's how I decided: obviously writing was the first factor taken into consideration. I mean, The Hills might be entertaining, but a) it's, er, "reality," and b) there's just not a lot of substance there. The second factor was the entertainment value, from the glitz and glamor and sophistication of Gossip Girl to the bonus of staring at John Krasinski for half an hour on Thursday nights. And finally, I took into consideration when I watched it. For example, Pushing Daisies is better written than Chuck, but I'd watch Chuck live or at least the night it aired every single week and sometimes PD got pushed off onto another day.

Finally, remember that these are my top 10 shows. I understand that there are some stellar shows out there, such as Battlestar Galactica and Brothers and Sisters, to name a couple, but somewhere along the way -- in the middle of Season 3, actually -- I lost track of BSG and I still have to finish Season 1 of B&S. And so I'm going with shows I watched regularly this year.

Top 10 Shows of 2007
10. Grey's Anatomy: Um, seriously? What happened this season? If it weren't for the excellence of last season -- say what you'd like, but last season was why this show stands out in my mind and hasn't been cast aside as just another Desperate Housewives -- Grey's wouldn't make the list at all. I swear, Izzie -- and the whole ridiculousness that was Izzie and George -- nearly ruined the entire show. If it weren't for the last two-parter, and more importantly, the awesomeness that is Bailey, I probably would've banished my Season Pass for good.
9. Heroes: That's right, it's at No. 9, when last year it probably would've been at No. 3 or 4. I just couldn't bring myself to care through most of this season, and the characters I didn't care about seemed to multiply. Also? Am I seriously the only one who just wants to yawn whenever Peter Petrelli is on the screen? Or, at the very least, shake him and implore him to use another expression -- or any expression at all? Still, the last three or four episodes, plus Matt's dad's power, plus Kristen Bell was enough for Heroes to remain as both a Season Pass and a candidate on my Best Of list.
8. Friday Night Lights: Writing-, acting-, and quality-wise, this show should be nearer the top. It really is one of the best shows on television. But the others above it scored higher in the other two categories, especially since I've only watched the first two episodes of this season and have been saving the rest to catch up on later.
7. House: Talk about night and day. I was so bored with last season -- and annoyed with the deterioration of the ducklings, primarily Cameron -- that I bailed with about four or five episodes to go. (And I still have no desire to see them.) I almost didn't tune in this season, but I am so glad I did. I loved the Survivor-style approach to House's finding his new team. It was fresh, it was entertaining, and hey, we were spared Foreman's glowering for most of the season. (I still wish he'd fall off a building and disappear forever.) Plus? Olivia Wilde is an excellent addition to the cast. I just hope Thirteen's real name is not what's circulating.
6. Gossip Girl: That's right, I'm ranking GG above the rest because it gets points in the entertainment and "When Jen Watches" categories. GG is fun and glamorous and...well, fun. Plus, it's well-written, well-acted, has a killer soundtrack, and there's even a surprising amount of substance and profundity underneath the glitz. (And before you roll your eyes, Kristin, Michael Ausiello, and Matt Roush have consistently talked about how much they enjoy it, too -- and it made Kristin's Top 10 list. I always suspected my taste was more in sync with hers.)
5. Criminal Minds: Usually I don't rank procedurals because of the very nature of the show, but I have to say, CM is not your usual procedural. There's a surprising amount of character insight and emotional payoff, and when combined with the angle -- delving into the minds of the most aberrant serial offenders -- and the execution, you get one excellent hour of television. I actually don't understand Matt Roush's hatred for this show. It's no darker than Dexter, which he loves.
4. The Office: Okay, so, it was definitely proven that The Office is better in a half-hour format this season, but what can you say about this show except that it is side-splittingly funny, even when you're squinting at the clock on your DVD player and wondering when the hour is going to end. And finally we get back the Pam from Seasons 1 and 2 and I could squee over Jim and Pam again instead of wondering when she'd been replaced by a cyborg. (Which is what I thought for much of last season.) And like I said above, 30 minutes of John Krasinski? Bonus points galore.
3. Pushing Daisies: Oh, Ned, you stole my heart from the first second you were on-screen. What a delightful, whimsical, and charming hour of television. This show from Bryan Fuller easily wins the Best New TV Show award. It is smart, funny, endearing and bittersweet, with an engaging and unique concept and one of the best ensemble casts I've seen.
2. Chuck: This is where my rating system comes into play. As I said, Chuck might not have been the best-written show on TV this season (although it came pretty close) but the premise and its execution, the exceptionally stellar cast -- most specifically the charmingly adorable Zachary Levi -- and the fact that you had a show that infused action with both heart and wit made this one of the few hours I scheduled around, TiVo be damned.
1. Veronica Mars: That's right, I have two No. 1s. Anyone got a problem with that? I can't talk much about it, because I think I've finally (finally!) gotten a handle on the Veronica-Mars-is-canceled depression I had going on there for a while, but like LOST, this is one of the best shows I've ever seen. Ever. And yes, I'm including Seasons 2 and 3, because as I have said an infinite amount of times, while Seasons 2 and 3 as a whole didn't compare to Season 1, their worst episodes were still better than 99.9% of what was on TV. Plus? Two words. Kristen. Bell.
1. LOST: It is simply the most sophisticated, complex, gripping, and intriguing television show I have ever seen. I actually pity the viewers who bailed, because obviously this is not a show for the attention deficit-inclined, and they missed out on seeing how some of those seemingly -- and frustratingly -- random details fit into the complexity that is the LOST mythology. And if that's not enough, the frakking flash-forward in the finale alone was mind-blowing enough to land it at the top of the pile.

There you have it. My choices are actually largely in keeping with the real columnists -- or at least the Big 3 -- with the obvious exception that I don't have Showtime or HBO (nor do I like The Wire or Dexter), find Ugly Betty a bit too campy for my taste (although their general consensus is that UB was off its game this season as well), and can count on one hand (with two fingers left over) the times I've laughed while watching 30 Rock.

I hope this frakking strike ends soon.

Well, crap. There has been talk about this for a while now, but I haven't posted about it, simply because I just hoped it wouldn't happen, that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers would pull its collective head out of its ass and reach an agreement with the Writers' Guild of America.

No such luck.

As of this evening, the WGA will begin striking. It could last as short as five days or as long as five months, which is how long the strike in '88 lasted.

What does that mean for us, the viewers? Well, come January, the scripts will run out and will be replaced by reality and news programming.

At this point, LOST could be the only show sitting pretty -- it's been stockpiling scripts since June, and currently there are approximately 17 in reserve. Heroes also may not fare as badly, since Tim Kring & Co. have decided to divide the series into volumes this season and the first volume will end in December. They will probably hold the second volume until after the strike ends.

It especially sucks for guys like Joss Whedon, whose brand-spanking-new show Dollhouse, which had been catapulting forward with lightning speed and could've seen the light of day as early as January, will come to a screeching halt, and Josh Schwartz, whose Chuck and Gossip Girl have been rapidly gaining momentum. GG lost an Entertainment Weekly cover because when the issue hits stands, it might not be on the air, and Chuck won't hear about a full-season pickup until after the strike ends.

Both guys fully support the writers, though, as do I -- the writers do all the work and get the short end of the stick every time. They are the most under-appreciated in the business and they don't see any of the profits from DVD sales or internet sales such as online viewing or sales through iTunes, where there are no upfront costs.

Without the writers, the actors have nothing to act, the directors have nothing to direct, the producers have nothing to produce, etc. It affects the boom guys, the camera guys, hair and makeup, assistant peons, janitors at studios, craft service, and the families of all the above.

Here's hoping the producers put a kibosh on their greed soon and realize that nobody wants to see Farmer Wants a Wife and My Dad is Better Than Your Dad, which, sadly, are two of a whole crap pile of what's planned for strike air time.

When all else fails and you can't think of an appropriate post title, just use a random-yet-fun line from a Good Charlotte song...

So, I haven't posted here very regularly lately. Originally I was going to wait till next weekend so anyone who wanted to could post scavenger hunt items, but I suppose I've gotten all that I'm going to get. Maybe I'll just shuffle around my filters and post the pictures for only those who commented with suggestions to see.

Anyway, I'm just checking in with some awesome TV tidbits before it's off to watch tonight's delicious episode of Chuck sans commercial interruption. I fraktastically adore this show. It is beyond amazing and Zachary Levi just makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.

1) Gossip Girl has moved to #1 on my TiVo list. Seriously. It might not actually be the best show on TV, but it is the one I absolutely without fail must watch every week and usually watch more than once. Following GG are Pushing Daisies and Chuck. Grey's has dropped to fourth, followed by, in order, Heroes, The Office, House, Bones, Friday Night Lights, Scrubs and Criminal Intent. Everything else I was watching has been punted because it either sucked (Private Practice), didn't hold my attention past the first episode (Journeyman, Women's Murder Club), or I really like but have no time for and will thus catch up on over the summer (How I Met Your Mother, Samantha Who, Dirty Sexy Money).

2) Looks like the Heroes PTB love Kristen Bell as much as those of us with intelligence do -- word on the street is that they are all working to make her a regular instead of giving her just a 13-episode arc.

3) Woohoo! Kal Penn and especially Olivia Wilde are indeed sticking around as two of House's newest ducklings. The third is that balding plastic surgeon guy. I kind of wish it was the Mormon dude House calls Big Love, 'cause I like him. I'm just happy that Cutthroat Bitch (House's nickname, not mine) was canned.

4) This week's Office episode introduces the Dunder Mifflin Utica branch, Karen's back (I loooovvve Rashida Jones), and Joss Whedon directs.

5) Kristin Chenoweth and Ellen Greene singing "Birdhouse in Your Soul" in last week's Pushing Daisies was simply divine. I love this show more and more every week.

6) Matt Roush published my email to him. (Scroll to the bottom -- it's the last one. If you haven't yet caught up on Season 2 of Friday Night Lights and plan to, don't read the included comment from another viewer because not only is she smoking crack and has no idea what good TV is, but it will also spoil you.)

Okay, not that I don't think it's been good. I mean, yes, I fast-forward through the Maya and Alejandro stuff, and the Niki/Micah/random relatives stuff (although Monica's power seems pretty cool), and Mohinder needs to stop whining already, but other than that...

That being said, when I saw Kristen Bell in the previews for next week, I grinned. It is about damn time. And you can already discern that charming little bit of insanity bubbling underneath Elle's surface.

I just caught up on a lot of TV. Way too much to devote much individual blogging time to, so I'm just going to sum everything up in five bullet points or less:

Grey's Anatomy

• For the LOVE. I have gone from general annoyance to downright hatred with regards to Izzie. Seriously -- Cori, I am dispatching you to Seattle Grace immediately to punch her in the neck. I so hope Callie bitch-slaps her next week.
• Kudos to Bailey and Meredith for finally -- if reluctantly -- reaching out to Callie and Lexie, and George? So glad you finally found the balls to tell Izzie to back the hell off.
• Cristina's manipulation game? So. Awesome. I died laughing when she told Alex he needed to go find his own pretend emotion.
• Mr. Gilmore's an intern! Who knew?

Pushing Daisies

• This show gets more adorable by the week. I, er, adore it, because apparently I am not creative enough to come up with a more unique verb.
• I rewound Kristin Chenoweth rocking "Hopelessly Devoted to You" three times.
• I would so make out with Lee Pace through a transparent plastic bag, and install a dishwashing glove in my car so I could hold his hand.
• I had no idea when Chi McBride was glowering through the halls of Boston Public and Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital that he had a really great sense of comic timing.

Chuck

• I, uh, don't think there's any doubt as to why the cast has taken to calling the actress who plays Sara Yvonne Strahotski. I need a copy of her fitness plan.
• I absolutely love Zachary Levi. And hello? At the end, when he's in that rather bicep-defining ringer t-shirt? I kind of forgot that he's supposed to be this lovable geek type. To quote Cori, Raar.
• I totally want to learn to do the tango now.

Gossip Girl

• I finally feel a bit of sympathy for Blair -- her mother is Satan. Ugh.
• The writers -- and Blake Lively/Leighton Meester -- have done a great job, particularly in this episode, at portraying the extreme differences between Serena and Blair, which basically highlight the many reasons Blair's so jealous of her best friend.
• That scene on the roof, where Serena goes to kiss Dan on the cheek and give him a little hug and he backs up because he's unsure of how to respond may have been really subtle, but it was spot-on. I'm SO glad the writers didn't duplicate the book version of Dan. Ugh.

House

• I need to reiterate how awesome Olivia Wilde is. I am totally rooting for Thirteen to make the cut as one of House's three new fellows, because she brings an interesting dynamic to PPTH -- she can go toe-to-toe with House, but she's still vulnerable. Kind of like Season 2 Cameron.
• Speaking of, where IS Season 2 Cameron? 'Cause this new Cameron is boring me. As are Chase and Foreman.
• What a really intriguing twist of the usual Mystery of the Week -- they had the diagnosis from the beginning, but because Thirteen didn't realize the patient hadn't ingested the required pills, they couldn't figure out what was wrong with him before he died. Really interesting. And really well-played, especially the scene at the end between Hugh Laurie and Olivia Wilde.

Bones

• Um, pony play? Really? Gross. And yes, Oprah, I'm judging. Deal with it.

The Office

• OMG I can't wait until the hour-long episodes go away. Michael and Dwight are only good in small doses.
• Jim and Pam are still adorable.
• Was Ryan always this annoying?

Heroes

• The show seems to be starting out a bit over-ambitiously. Too many characters, not enough development.
• Claire is going to get her dad killed.
• I still am very distrustful of West, and that was true even before the eighth painting was revealed.

The Hills

• Heidi and Spencer are stupid, although I suppose they can't exactly confess on national television.
• I don't get how someone could spend $2500 on a purse. This is not a jealous statement. It's one comprised purely of bafflement.

Dirty Sexy Money

• Hilarious.
• I'm adding Peter Krause to The List. He's total acronym material.

Samantha, Who?

• Hilarious.

Other TV tidbits

• I've cut Journeyman and Women's Murder Club loose, and I've decided to catch up on the new season of How I Met Your Mother over the summer. Mondays are too crowded, especially now that Samantha, Who? has started.
• So I'm left with 12 shows (well, 11, really, since The Hills will end in a few weeks) to keep track of 'till The Return of Jezebel James, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and LOST start midseason.

ETA: yes, in case anyone even saw it, I made my earlier post private. Even when I attempt a personal post, it seems flat and boring so I suppose that's a sign I should just stick to pop culture.

Pushing Daisies easily won its time slot last night, garnering 9.12/14 ratings. Which is huge.

I am SO relieved. ABC's ginormous promotional push as well as the nearly unanimous adoration from the critics really paid off.

I love Matt Roush. We see eye-to-eye on almost everything, and so I was glad I didn't waste my time with second episodes of Private Practice or Bionic Woman this week.

Here's what Matt had to say re: PP and poor, wasted Amy Brenneman:
Practice is still far from perfect, and at times can’t even achieve mediocre as its doctors act like giggling schoolkids (lookee, a stripper in the office!). If Amy Brenneman had any sense, she would have climbed aboard the bicycle Violet bought for her ex and pedaled away in search of a role with even a shred of dignity. Poor Amy. At this point, Audra McDonald is carrying the show with her presence and wry humor, even when forced to act jealous over her ex Taye Diggs being set up with said hooker by his sophomoric co-workers.

Meanwhile, Addison looked like she was dressed for a cocktail mixer (Gossip Girl, anyone? SUCH the most enjoyable show in this time period right now) rather than work, and watching Kate Walsh and Tim Daly spar over kisses and who’s mad at who is beyond tiresome. Private Practice still needs serious tone surgery, but it is getting more watchable. By baby steps.

Seriously? What the frak happened to Addison? She's gone from awesome to awesomely annoying. Anyway, for Shonda's sake, I'm glad that PP seems to be getting better, because she's genius, but with all the other awesome shows out there, I'm not going to waste my time enduring the "baby steps," and I agree with Matt -- Gossip Girl is SO much more enjoyable. Sadly (for PP's sake), it seems a group of privileged teenagers have more emotional depth than a bunch of 30-something (supposed) professionals.

Matt's take on the second episode of BW? It was no better than the worst episode of Alias, and it's going to take a miracle for Jaime Sommers to be mentioned in the same breath as Buffy Summers and Sydney Bristow.

So I'm glad that my early instincts paid off.

Meanwhile, he's absolutely raving about tonight's Grey's.

Can't wait.

Sigh.

I am in love with Pushing Daisies.

I don't think I know enough words to describe the brilliance Bryan Fuller (Heroes, Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me) has created, but I'll make a concerted effort.

It is magical. Whimsical. Enchanted. Vibrant. Beautiful. Touching. Clever. Quirky. Funny. Smart.

Lee Pace is most definitely an Acronym, but then again, he was awesome as Aaron on Wonderfalls. The entire cast is practically perfect in every way, from Anna Friel's Chuck to Chi McBride's Emerson Cod to Kristin Chenoweth's sweetly seductive Olive Snook. Chuck's old maid aunts, The Darling Mermaid Darlings, were disarmingly hilarious with their matching personality disorders and love of cheese.

Narrator Jim Dale, whose rich voice I love in the Harry Potter audio books, gives the show a soothing quality; it's almost as if he's reading us a fairy tale.

The completely unconventional love story between Ned and Charlotte, or "Chuck," as Ned calls her, is going to be adorable and angsty. I can already feel it -- during the last scene, where they're holding their own hands behind their backs pretending they were holding each other's, I think I actually awwww'd out loud, even though I was the only one in my living room. I want a boy to give me a statue of a monkey and tell me his world would be sweeter with me in it. Sigh.

I'm worried that, as with other such original, intelligent, wonderful shows, Pushing Daisies' brilliance and sweetness will be lost on the average viewer. Let's hope ABC does FOX one better and gives it more than four shows, at least. (I'm still bitter, FOX -- you completely mishandled Wonderfalls.)

Absolutely breath-taking. Can't wait for next week.

"Poison Ivy"

And....we go from whimsical to depressing.

Seriously. I love Gossip Girl more every week, but it's been three weeks, I've seen all three episodes multiple times (yes, I rewound tonight's and watched it again because of the last half of it) and have never failed to cry. And feel crappy.

I saw an interview with Leighton Meester and she was talking about how layered Blair was, and yeah, she's screwed up. Her father abandoned her family, and for another man, at that. Her best friend abandoned her without a word and was incommunicado for a year. The same best friend, with whom she's had to compete for everything, slept with her boyfriend. Her mother has fostered a horrible self-image that's culminated in an eating disorder (Leighton disclosed that the writers were, in fact, working Blair's bulimia into the series).

On paper, I should totally sympathize with her. And yet not until the very last minutes of tonight's episode did I feel anything but contempt. I thought BL and LM did a fantastic job at their truce talk in Central Park, and really in the entire episode. I'm glad LM's able to play something other than bitchy -- the scene where Eric tells Blair that he was the patient and Serena was just protecting him was very well-done indeed.

Anyway, I'm glad Jenny's becoming friends with Eric; I continue to be ambivalent about Nate and his overbearing, Dartmouth-obsessed dad; I continue to think Matthew Settle is WAY too hot to be a dad (and to have teenage kids); I continue to adore Dan; I continue to loathe Chuck.

I'm off to watch this season's guilty pleasure, Dirty Sexy Money. I caught the premiere on ABC.com today and I love it.

Welcome to my first weekly recap. I have no idea what type of format I'm going to go with, which is pretty typical with me, so as usual, there will just be a lot of stream-of-consciousness-type babbling.

So without further adieu... (what does that expression literally mean, anyway? I mean, how does 'without further goodbye' make any sense?)

Mondays:
Chuck and Heroes: already raved about them here.

How I Met Your Mother: I have to say, I'm very glad that this is a show that lends itself to jumping back in after skipping a whole season. This is a funny, funny comedy. You'd think that "funny comedy" would be redundant, but sadly, no. Not when you've got series like According to Jim and King of Queens and that awful David Spade sitcom that keep getting renewed year after year. Anyway, Neil Patrick Harris is a comedic genius, and I have a crush on Josh Radnor's Ted and Jason Segel's Marshall. Also? It goes without saying that I'm a ginormous Alyson Hannigan fan. I thought I'd be sad that Ted and Robin broke up, because I thought they were so cute, and after all, Season 1 was all about Ted's undying love and Robin finally realizing she wanted to be with him, too, etc, etc, etc, and blue French horns. They've done a good job at hinting at Ted's wife and how she's out there with her yellow umbrella and it's only a matter of time before they cross paths. Guest stars Mandy Moore and Enrique Inglesias were hilarious, and I died laughing when poor drunk Ted ends up with a tramp stamp.

Journeyman: It was different, and a little slow-moving at first, but by the end, I really liked it. Kevin McKidd is engaging as Dan, and I'm interested in seeing more. I liked the twist the writers threw at us. All along I thought that the reason he kept going back in time was to save the businessman but it turns out he's actually supposed to save the man's son. His first trip back, he saves the man from killing himself, so he can, er, create the boy; the second time, he has a heart-to-heart with the man's girlfriend after she's found out she's pregnant and prevents her from aborting the boy; and the third time is where the twist comes in -- he stops the man from killing his wife and son because, as Dan finds out, the boy grows up and ends up becoming a hero and pulling a number of people from a fire. Pretty cool. Sadly, of the new shows I'm watching, this is probably the weakest, but I like it, I think it fits in well with NBC's Monday hero lineup, and I'll keep watching.

Tuesdays:
Bones: "The Widow's Son in the Windshield" started Season 3 off with a bang. As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I'd forgotten just how much I missed this show. I suspect that people dismiss this as simply another criminal procedural, but it is so much more than that. The chemistry between David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel is palpable, and the entire cast as a whole gels really well. I especially like Michaela Conlin, and TJ Thyne is so cute. (I am so glad he cut off the 'fro, though.) In the premiere, Booth and Bones get pulled into an odd ritualistic murder that turns out to be part of a centuries-old cannibalistic cult. They are very awkward around one another at first and Bones finds excuses to remain in the lab, mainly because when Angela and Hodgins abandoned their own wedding in the finale, they left Booth and Brennan standing at the altar, and Brennan found herself face-to-face with the very real feelings she has for Booth and vice-versa. By the end, however, they were back to their bantering, sexual tension-imbued awesomeness, although they were unable to find the true serial killer...which will continue throughout the season. I love a good season-long mystery.

House: I skipped the last six episodes of the season last year because I was a bit fed up with some of the character arcs -- namely, Cameron's. She was my favorite character besides House, and for a long time, the writers were doing an excellent job at exploring Cameron's insecurities and her growing steadily more confident, and her love for her boss. And then, somewhere in Season 3, she just...stopped being Cameron. She was annoying. I got bored, so I stopped watching. But I am so glad I watched the season premiere. I read the story the Mystery of the Week was based on in People last summer and I cried. It was so tragic. I really liked how the writers brought it into the Princeton-Plainsboro universe, although it wasn't any less tragic. House is alone for the entire episode and you can tell it bothers him, but, being House, he refuses to admit that he misses Cameron, Chase, and Foreman and that he needs a team. What Wilson said was right -- House became attached to them and was hurt when they left, and so he doesn't want to risk forming any more attachments. (I understand the feeling.) Anyway, I'm actually looking forward to this season, and I set a Season Pass when before it was just on a week-to-week status. Frak, I love Hugh Laurie.

Law and Order: SVU: I don't normally watch many first-run procedurals since they rerun on USA and TNT all the time (and all summer long), but I wanted to check out the premiere because I'd heard good things about Cynthia Nixon's guest-starring role. She was amazing. It was like my favorite Mary Higgins Clark book, All Around the Town, meets Primal Fear. Nixon played a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder and she rocked five separate personalities. She should definitely get at least considered for a guest-starring Emmy next year.

Wednesdays:
I wrote about Gossip Girl and how much I disliked Private Practice here.

Thursdays:
I wrote about Grey's Anatomy here.

The Office: I grinned when Kevin called Pam and Jim PB&J. In fact, I don't think that grin left my face for a second during the entire hour-long premiere. Finally the Pam I knew and loved from Seasons 1 and 2 is back. She and Jim are so adorable together. What an awesome hour of television -- from Meredith getting hit by Michael's car (and having more lines in one episode than I think she had in the past three seasons put together) to Michael obsessing over a disease that's already been cured and establishing a Fun Run to Dwight putting Angela's cat in the freezer...kudos to Greg Daniels and his writing team for a triumphant return of the funniest show on TV.

Fridays:
Moonlight: I don't have anything on the schedule till Women's Murder Club starts but I thought, just for kicks, I'd check out Moonlight since Jason Dohring is in it and I loved him in Veronica Mars. Um, yeah. For one thing, Dohring plays his new character like the undead version of Logan, complete with manic hand gestures and facial tics. I watched about 15 minutes before I turned it off. It was painfully awful.

Best show of the week: A really tough decision, but I'd have to go with The Office.
Banned from my TiVo: Private Practice
Newcomers to watch: Chuck's Zachary Levi; Gossip Girl's Blake Lively
Quote of the week: "I wouldn't let you take care of the magical kids I make up to score with single moms." -- Barney to Amy (Mandy Moore), How I Met Your Mother

*If you haven't seen the show yet, you should definitely watch the video at the end of this post. If it doesn't interest you, then the show's not for you, probably. But it is *awesome* and quite accurately captures the tone of the show. Plus the Mat Kearney song is fantastic.

Heh. Hearing Kristen say that in one of her Gossip Girl voice-overs tonight cracked me up.

She may have been referring to the whole Nate-Serena-Blair-Chuck-Dan debacle, but I'm using it to refer to Private Practice. More on that later.

Anyway, before I delve into tonight's episode, "The Wild Brunch," let me just take a moment to talk about two of my favorite books. Emily Giffin is one of my favorite authors, and she wrote Something Borrowed and Something Blue. The intriguing plot twist in both of these books is that they both center on the same story -- but are told from two very different points of view, best friends Rachel and Darcy.

I hated Darcy in Rachel's book, Something Borrowed. I sympathized with Rachel, even though what she did was pretty darn despicable. Then it was Darcy's turn in Something Blue. I still didn't like her much, but I did understand her a little better, and by the end of the book, I even got a little nostalgic and teary.

This is how I'm approaching Serena and Blair in Gossip Girl. Okay. So what Serena did was also pretty shady, although, hello, I still maintain that Nate deserved more of the blame. Maybe that's just the Girl Code in me. We don't know what Serena was like before she returns from boarding school, to which she fled after The Nate Thing. We don't know much about Blair, either. But from the first time we see her, she's been bitchy and vindictive and jealous -- and this was before she found out about Nate and Serena. So I don't get it.

I'm not sure what could be divulged that would make me sympathize with Blair, and since this is ostensibly going to be from Serena's POV anyway, I don't think I'll ever sympathize with her. I despise her. I hate hate hate with a passion Mean Girls (the actual entity, not the movie, which I loved), and Blair makes Regina George look like an amateur. The look she gets on her face just as she's about to twist the knife in Serena's back made me sick to my stomach. What a BITCH.

On the other hand, I really like this flawed, broken, mysterious character we've got in Serena. We don't know what happened while she was gone. The books say boarding school, but I've heard that they might change that up. The 'rehab' word was thrown around. What we do know is that she's back and trying to change and make amends. That is the kind of character and storyline I relish -- Josh Schwartz is talented enough to deliver a solid character arc, and Blake Lively is talented enough to give Serena depth.

Speaking of Blair, though, one thing I didn't get (because I haven't read past the first book) was that I thought Jenny idolized Serena. It was a bit confusing when she showed up at Blair's and did everything but genuflect. Erin, maybe you can help me out with that -- is this in the books, or is this just creative licensing?

Anyway, I am thisclose to adding Penn Badgley (Dan) to my -- crap, what did you call it, Cori? -- um...my FMWASOGBTWWLTDTFTDHTPOBP. Yeah. That's it. He was so adorable.

Music was great, but good grief, GG has employed Alexandra Patsavas, the same music supervisor from The OC and Grey's Anatomy. Of course the music is going to be kick-ass.

But the best part of the entire hour was Blake Lively. She shone once more. The scene where Blair tells Serena that she had found out about Serena and Nate hooking up, and then again the scene at the brunch where Blair and Chuck told Dan, and then at the end where Serena goes after Dan and tells him she's trying to change and he turns and walks away...dude. Blake was amazing -- her face effortlessly morphed from shocked to guilt-ridden to hurt to broken to desperate...and every emotion in between.

If I hadn't set the Season Pass last week, I would've definitely set it up after this week. This was the only show I was really looking forward to tonight, and I will continue to anticipate it every Wednesday. Even Matt Roush admitted he was really looking forward to "The Wild Brunch," although he had to throw the words "guilty pleasure" in for good measure. He's a guy so I suppose he has to "save face" or whatever. (Whatever.)

Private Practice, on the other hand? It majorly disappointed. It's definitely no Grey's Anatomy. The odd thing is that I like all the actors individually, but they just don't mesh. There is absolutely no chemistry, nor do I particularly relate to any of them. Normally I'd say I'd give it another week, but technically, this was the second episode, since we got that crossover special with Grey's last season. So I'm out.

Oh well. Shonda Rhimes couldn't be perfect at everything she did. And hey, that's one less hour of television I have to keep up with every week.

I'll take Gossip Girl over Private Practice (and Serena van der Woodsen and Dan Humphreys over Addison Montgomery and...erm...Tim Daly's character's name) any day.

Last night's Gossip Girl pulled in better numbers than the series debuts of The OC, One Tree Hill, Gilmore Girls, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Its 3.65 million viewers (which is really good for a smaller network like the CW -- if VM had garnered those kinds of numbers, it would've gotten a fourth season) easily won the hour for women aged 18-34 and retained 93% of its powerhouse lead-in, America's Next Top Model.

So far? So good.

If you missed the pilot, you can catch it again Sunday at 7 p.m. (Central).