It’s a bit of a soap, with the cast intersecting and hooking up in various combinations. That makes it kinds of sexy and fun. There is a fair bit of humour as well, as the aspiring actors, dancers, or comedians do not always lead lives of dignity. But there’s a real core of sadness underlying it, too, because these people’s lives are kind of miserable.

Abby Vargas is a young, pretty Canadian who can sing, and possibly can even act. But six months after moving to L.A., her biggest role is as dead hooker, in body bag. She is broke. She lived in her car until it broke down; now she’s crashing with Nick (more on him later) and having to take the bus everywhere.

Connor Lake looks as though he, at least, has it made. He’s been cast in a lead role in a big medical drama, and has moved out of The Lux for more luxurious digs. But he’s having trouble keeping up with all the lines, and the producers are insisting he see an acting coach. He’s trying to anesthetize with sex, drugs, and most recently, self-mutilation.

Raquel Westbrook used to be big. Everyone remembers her from that cult show 12 years ago, which had the terrible time slot and so was cancelled after one season. She knows everyone, but at this point, she’s reduced to trying out for dead hooker roles, and losing those to younger actresses. (Because 32 is so old!) It’s making her a little edgy, and she’s drinking too much. All her hopes are now pinned on a great script she read by a couple of unknowns.

Nick Wagner works at a coffee shop by day to pay the bills, and tries his act out at comedy clubs by night. So far, he’s bombing, both professionally and personally. He’s the guy every girl wants “as a friend”, and he’s low on funds. I was thinking that of all characters, he’s the one who really should pack it in, but last episode he finally hit on a comedy groove, based on mocking himself.

Tariq Muhammad expected to make music during his internship at a record company, but mostly he’s been running errands and washing cars. That is, until he secretly sent Usher some “beats” that proved he had talent. He’s now assigned to work with tough rap star Kaldrick King, and things are going well—they’ve really hit it off. If only they weren’t both in the closet, and wanting to stay there…

Alicia Lowe is a dancer who works hard at her craft. But so far it’s close but no cigar at signing up for a tour. To pay the bills, she works as an exotic dancer. (This means she has fewer money troubles than most of the cast.) Her latest gambit is to make a sex tape with a former movie star, in the hopes of gaining fame, Paris Hilton-style. Previews of the next episode indicate that’s not going to work out so well.

So that’s our merry crew. If you’re at all intrigued, you can catch up with all episodes online, and new episodes play Tuesdays at 9:00 (hey, that’s now–I love my PVR) on Much Music.

Best new show remains CBC’s Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays

Although I was also right that nobody is watching it; the ratings are dire. Even though they actually have moved it to Tuesdays, right after the very popular Rick Mercer and 22 Minutes. So I’m not counting on any more seasons, which is unfortunate. But at least CBC has indeed pledged to run all of this season’s episodes.

(By the way, this is no Lost; I don’t think it would be difficult to pick this series up even if you haven’t been watching from the start.)

Cast-drive new shows: Secret Circle and New Girl are in (for now); Ringers is out

One thing I can say about Secret Circle is, they aren’t afraid of casting women. The witches’ circle has four girls and two guys—one of whom (spoiler alert!) died. The adult characters feature quite a few women as well.

The show continues to be nothing more than a teenage witch show; most definitely not developing into Buffy. And sadly, the delicious Gale Harold is playing a “Dad” whose character is unable to get any (so far, only the teenagers get any). But still, it’s engaging enough, for what it is.

… Whereas the second episode of Ringers was so ridiculously awful, we had to drop it. Like, immediately.

But New Girl, we’re sticking with for now. It’s not Big Bang Theory funny yet, but amusing enough.

And I’m pleased that most sexist of the fall outings—Playboy Club and Charlie’s Angels—are already history.

Returning shows: One disappointment; two wins

The Mentalist followed up their completely awesome season finale with the lamest possible season opener: (Spoiler alert) Jayne was purely acquitted of the murder he clearly committed, then concluded that it wasn’t Red John he killed after.

So the finale that seemed to change everything, actually changed nothing. Bah.

But Big Bang Theory picked up nicely where it left off (good that they showed two episodes to start, though, as the first wasn’t quite as strong) and I continue to be really impressed by the mad figure skating skills of the hockey players on Battle of the Blades. Having a woman hockey player in the mix has been a great addition.

Returning shows on the bubble

My recorded episodes of Glee sat unwatched for so long the PVR decided to deleting some itself, along with my request to tape any future ones. (Seriously; it did.) But I did catch a few before they were permanently snatched.

And they actually weren’t terrible. I still don’t think the character of Sue is working, but others seem to have had some reparation, and the dropped characters… Haven’t really been missed. So I may try a few more episodes, PVR willing.

As for Bones, that starts tonight, and is set to record, but I’m still basically dreading it.

But I need a distraction from the news, which I’ve been particularly depressing of late. So I’ve decided to audition a number of new shows, to see if any are worth sticking with.

Best new show (so far)

Completely unfair to judge this yet, as I haven’t even watched all the new shows I intend. And just one episode isn’t much to go on. Nevertheless, I feel I should mention CBC’s Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays (which, confusingly, actually plays on Wednesdays) as I suspect most haven’t heard of it. It’s a half hour comedy, pretty simple premise: Michael has been in therapy for 15 years for various social phobias. His doctor is writing a book about it.

Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s funny. And feels true. And it has women characters as well, and they even get to talk to each other (not about men). And it’s fun spotting the various Ottawa locations in use. And being Canadian, it’s both unlikely to overstay its welcome, or get cancelled prematurely—at least this season. CBC has no doubt ordered a certain number of episodes, all of which it will broadcast.

New shows I’m checking out only because of the cast

1. The Secret Circle

Because it features the delicious Gale Harold, whom I loved in Queer as Folk, here playing a very nasty warlock. It’s a show about teenage witches in a small town. And based on one episode, it’s… exactly what you’d expect a show about teenage witches in a small town to be. So far, not promising to be more, à la Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But still, enough entertainment factor there for me to return for more episodes and see how it goes.

2. Ringer

Speaking of Buffy, Sarah Michelle Gellar is back in this new series, playing identical twin sisters. Boy, has this one received mixed reviews, some really dire. And sure, the premise is fairly ridiculous, but again based on only one episode, I’m willing to give it a few more views to see how it develops.

3. New Girl

This one stars Zooey Deschanel, and its main selling is most definitely that it stars Zooey Deschanel. It is totally running on her personal charisma. I found the first episode OK. It had some funny moments. I know feminist me is supposed to be offended by her manic pixie dream girl persona, but in a season also giving us a redone Charlie’s Angels and The Playboy Club, (and I’m not so sure about Pan Am, either) it’s hard to work up the outrage.

Returning shows I’m looking forward to

1. The Mentalist

This is one I never would have picked before. Not that I dislike The Mentalist, but it’s more Jean’s show, just one I also don’t mind watching, because the characters are fun and have good interaction.

But I have to say that last season’s finale really blew me away. It was completely gripping in and of itself, in a way that show isn’t usually, it apparently resolved the Red John storyline that had underlined the series since its start (but had become increasingly and a somewhat absurdly convoluted), and in way that I really didn’t expect but still didn’t seem unrealistic at all.

Now, I just can’t wait to see how they get Jayne out of this, and back to helping the CBI solve crimes. (They promise it won’t all have been a dream.)

2. Big Bang Theory

Here’s another show that went out last season with an ending both surprising and realistic, and it should be great fun watching all this unravel. I love this show for its consistent ability to make me laugh out loud. For real.

3. Battle of the Blades

Because the only hockey players I want to see are those wearing figure skates.

Returning shows I’m not sure I’ll keep returning to

I’ve already decided to drop the too-uneven How I Met Your Mother, and I’m not sure about these two:

1. Glee

Because in the past, no matter how bad this show sometimes got mid-season (and it could get pretty bad), it always seemed to pull together a finale that made me love it again. But last season? Holy geez, that was crappy. Replaying the Quinn-Finn-Jessie-Rachel love triangle again? Seriously? It’s the night before Nationals, and they haven’t even written the songs they’re going to perform yet? What?

And having made Coach Sylvester a total cartoon then decided we all needed to cry over her sister, what the heck will they do with her next? And apparently they had some reality show this summer to pick new cast members.

I don’t know, Glee. You’re sitting on the PVR there, but I’m not feeling in a big hurry to press Play.

2. Bones

Brennan and Booth and baby. Boring!

And for a bit of dancing

I have been checking out Nico Archambault’s Ils Dansent, focusing on the training of 10 male dancers. With no dropping of one dancer each week! Just learning new and increasingly complex choreography. Nice-looking show. And I can certainly use the weekly exposure to the French language.

Me, not so much. For whatever reason, I don’t particular enjoy sitting there watching celebrity chefs prepare food (that I’m not going to get to eat). So since Food Detectives stopped making new episodes (far as I can tell), there is no Food Network program that I watch regularly.

But over on the W Network, I have recently discovered Anna and Kristina’s Grocery Bags. It’s basically a cooking show. And that one, I may be just a little addicted to.

I had seen their previous show (possibly still on), called Shopping Bags, in which they test various consumer products. It was definitely an entertaining approach to product testing, but the information always seems to whiz by so quickly it wasn’t that useful. Three types of five different products in one half-hour; how are you supposed to remember which to buy afterward?

Whereas each episode of Grocery Bag focuses on one (1) cookbook. That’s what they test: cookbooks. They do this by making a sampling of recipes from the book, within a time limit, to be judged by a chef. Interspersed in there, they do a little pre-taped product testing of both kitchen gadgets and ingredients, to be used on “cook day”.

I like it in part because I can relate to it. Anna and Kristina are competent cooks, but not trained chefs. As the stress mounts of trying to prepare five or more new recipes for a guest who is coming to judge your efforts, they make mistakes. They get annoyed with each other. They swear. They redo. They run off to the grocery store to buy more ingredients. They curse the poor instructions or weird ingredients of the book. They get grossed out trying to deal with octopus tentacles or squid ink.

Then when the food is done and the chef arrives with a bottle of wine, everything seems a little better. And the tasting begins… Will the dishes make the taste buds sing, or stimulate the gag reflex?

It’s drama, man. It’s highly entertaining every time.

Plus, it’s useful. As it’s a test, they try to be real sticklers for following the recipes—like manually chopping all the onions if the book says to, instead of what I would do, which is stick those suckers in the food processor. In the end, they come out with a recommendation to buy or not, but as you’ve seen how and why they came to that conclusion, you can decide if you agree. It’s made me consider cookbooks I otherwise never would have, like Gwyneth Paltrow”s (!)—turns out it’s not just the vegan, raw-food weirdness you might expect—and Gordon Ramsey’s.

Now what I want to know is whether those “addicted to the Food Network” people would (or do) like this show. Or is it just too real?

Yesterday we’d been happily watching Moulin Rouge on DVD on this same TV when the picture simply disappeared.

It shouldn’t be so hard to do something as lazy as watching television.

It seems especially wrong to be churlish, though, when these troubles are all the result of really nice work anniversary gift Jean got, of a BluRay DVD player and surround sound system. Since the only place we currently have an LCD television is in the living room, it made sense to set up the BluRay there. This is also provided surround in that room, where previous we merely had stereo sound.

Plus, then we were able to move our older sound system into the kitchen, which we will also, eventually, have surround sound. In the meantime, I have better stereo sound, and can now hook up the iPod in that room, rather then from the bedroom.  Particularly handy when it decides to randomly play a song that is a complete mystery to me (I have a lot of songs), compelling me to look at the iPod screen to see what it is. That task no longer involves stairs.

All nice things. Except that it really is bloody complicated watching television now. You have to turn on the three devices: PVR, TV, sound system. No big deal, right? Except that every one of three remotes tries to control all the devices—sort of. So you turn on one, and then you grab a second remote to turn on the next, and that one turns off the first while turning on the second, and so on… Then they’re finally all on and you accidentally press some Power button again, and oops! They all go off again.

It’s enough to make you think maybe you should just read a book.

Then, the settings. Of course, the sound system needs to be set to right option–Sat / Cable,  not TV, and of course not DVD, FM, Audio, or any otheir subsettings… One day, the only way I could find to get sound from my record player was to turn the TV on and change its source input. What?

Yes, the TV also needs to be set to be on the right source. Now is it HDMI1 or HDMI3? Or maybe BD (BluRay disc) system?

If things still are synching up correctly at this point, it may be because of the switches. We do still have a TV downstairs, but only one PVR now (the older having collapsed and died a few weeks ago). We’re kind of proud we figured out how to hook up two TVs to one PVR, but it does mean setting various switches to the right position depending on what you want to do (watch upstairs or downstairs, watch live or recorded). Not to mention the strange kind of voodoo dance you have to do downstairs in front the remote control signal, trying to successfully get the signal wirelessly upstairs. But when you finally hit that sweet spot, it’s exciting!

Sigh. But I will say that high-definition picture really is very pretty. And, it really is great to have both the pretty picture and surround sound available in one room, instead of having to choose one or the other.

What we still haven’t achieved? Hooking up the computer to make it easier to watching streaming video. We tried with our really old computer (which had been in the kitchen), but it frankly could not handle being projected onto such a big screen. So despite Toronto Life’s interesting article called “Honour among thieves”, which made it sound like practically a patriotic duty to steal your content from the Internet, we can still only do that by downloading, putting that content on a USB, and popping that into one of the DVD players or the TV.

Which remains slightly more onerous task than turning on and watching the TV. But only a just.

And congratulations, Grammy’s, on giving Neil Young an award for an actual song (not just nice music repackaging), thus eliminating one from your embarrassing top 10 list of people who’ve never won a Grammy.

And to all the people in Twitter-ville so very, very upset that the Grammy’s dared award Album of the Year to a band they’ve never heard of… I gave you my very mature response:

Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah. My band rules.

Best live acts? Most influential performers? Best albums of all time? Most-played songs on Cathy’s iPod?

No, no, no, and no. It’s actually Top Ten Who Never Won a Grammy, courtesy of 411 Music.

This is my favorite quote in the list:

This is another situation where you can’t really find a good reason as to why the group has yet to receive this award; they were popular commercially and critically for not just a brief time but for a long while, and you would think that at some point, one year, in one random category, people could have thought that The Who of all bands did the best job. But that apparently wasn’t the case. Because, as we all should realize by now, these people are morons.

Nevertheless, I do plan to record and watch this year’s Grammy’s. At least they had enough sense to nominate and invite Arcade Fire… And with three nominations, they even have a serious shot at winning one.

Angel Season 5. Probably haven’t seen it since it went off the year in 2004. I’d forgotten so many details it almost seemed new at times. I remembered that Angel and Spike had an epic fight over who got to shanshu, but forgotten just how awesome that entire episode—Destiny—was.

So good I had to rewatch with commentary. And be still my Spike-loving heart if the commentary didn’t reveal that in the first draft of the script, Angel won the fight. Only, after the scripting out each vampire’s arguments, they came to an inevitable conclusion: Spike was the better man. He was the deserving one.

And he won the fight.

(Vid above is a fan edit, not the original show. And like everything I tried to embed, not allowed. All  have to be watched YouTube.)

Then there’s Everwood, Season 1. This I can be forgiven for not remembering, as I’d never seen it before. I’d seen later season, but not the start of it all. As it was somehow in memory as a good but rather sentimental program, I was a bit startled by some of the rawness, as in the epic fight (another fight!) between father and son in the pilot, below.

Another example? Episode 4 dealt with a breakout of gonorrhea among the teens of the town. Gonorrhea of the throat, to be precise. (“But I’m a total virgin!”)

Finally, the much-lamented Freaks and Geeks, which lasted only one season, but launched so many careers:

• This year’s Oscar host, James Franco.
• Jason Segal of How I Met Your Mother and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
• John Francis Daley—Sweets on Bones
• Seth Rogen, unlikely movie star and leading man
• Busy Philips, now Laurie on Cougartown

And of course, that Judd Apatow guy.

The following short (1 minute) scene, in which Lindsay’s parents try to decipher the lyrics of The Who’s “Squeezebox”, is one of the damn funniest things I’ve ever seen.

I’ve got to watch the commentary track of that episode now.

So I was expecting it might be kind of scary, but wasn’t expecting it to be quite so—intense, I guess, as the warning said.

Because this not be a “fun” zombie series. In fact, they’re not called zombies at all, but walkers—the walking dead, you see.

But I should backtrack. The premise is a small town sheriff who is shot and goes into a coma. When he awakens from it, he finds the world much changed. Most people in it are dead. But some—well, it’s not quite accurate to say they don’t stay dead, because they are still dead, but they don’t stay still. They rise. They lumber around. They look for live flesh to feast on. The only way to stop them is to damage their heads (shooting being the most efficient way). While easy enough to get away from one on one, in a frenzied crowd, it’s a different story.

The whole thing is treated quite seriously, and is therefore horrible. Decaying corpses. Adorable little girls with teddy bears but rotting faces. Pathetic paraplegic zombie woman. And worst of all, loved ones rendered as walkers. Could you shoot the face of the person you loved and just watched die?

So. It was good, but it really wasn’t the ideal thing to watch right before going to bed.

If you’re curious, AMC is rerunning the pilot this Friday, apparently. Then it’s continuing on Sunday nights, in Mad Men’s old time slot.

Week 1

Bree and Edgar – Sexy hip-hop

Of course, with Bree having been eliminated so early, no way this will be in the final show. I love how sexy it is, but that’s apparently the very reason these two ended up in the bottom three that week: People were offended by it! (In the video, the actual dancing starts around 1:37.)

Hani and Tara-Jean – Nico’s jazz routine

Yep, also won’t be there, given than Hani was the first to go! Seemed completely unfair, though, both that he ended up in the bottom 3, and that the judges dismissed him along with his injured partner.

Week 2

Nathalie and Mackenzie – Hip hop

Seems I either love the hip hop or am completely indifferent to it, and this one, I loved. I think it’s partly the song, which I liked so much, I bought! (Also a very rare thing for me, with hip hop.) And these two white, contemporary just did a great job with it.

Charlene and Jeff – Contemporary

Having rewatched, I have to say, I don’t think I’d include this one. It was fine, they danced it fine, but there was just so much contemporary this year! Nothing especially stood out about this one. I can’t even remember the choreographer, but it was probably Stacey Tookey.

Danielle and Sebastian – Theatre

This one, on the other hand, was very memorable. I think Sean Cheeseman may be my favorite choreographer. This seemed to suit Danielle and Sebastian perfectly.

Week 3

Amanda and Denys – Quickstep

Someday, someone needs to explain to me why in the ballroom dance classes I take, quickstep is considered one of the easiest. It’s typically the first one you learn. Yet on this show, it’s taken as gospel that it’s the hardest. Either way, Amanda and Denys nailed it.

Charlene and Jeff – Hustle

Oh my God, just as impressive on the second viewing (well, it’s more than my second). Still think this is the best disco I’ve ever seen on one of these shows. They were amazing.

Week 4

Nathalie and Mackenzie – Blake’s contemporary

I think I’d like this better if I didn’t now know that the tatoos represent Blake and Mia Michaels (are we ever going to find out what that was about?), but it was a fairly striking contemporary piece. And at least neither was supposed to have a disease.

Amanda and Denys – House

The number that, insanely, landed these two in the bottom three. Aren’t they great? (By the way, this is the closest Denys got to hip hop in the entire competition.)

Week 5

Charlene and Mackenzie – Latin

Some sexy Latin thing they did. Another one that, on retrospective viewing, I’m not sure deserves a place here.

Amanda and Sebastian – Contemporary

Amanda is afflicted with something here—Alzheimer’s? An eating disorder? I don’t remember. (When I tape, unlike YouTube, I don’t include the intro.) Sebastian tries to uphold her. Clearly, I liked it at the time, but they did way too many of these “issue” dances this year. (Ever since that cancer number made a big splash on the American show…) Caused each to lose something in the repetition.

Claudia and Denys – Samba

Clearly I wasn’t being overly picky this week, but Denys was great as usual, and Claudia kept up reasonably well.

Danielle and Edgar – Contemporary

Mostly notable for how well Edgar handles this dance, given that it’s not his genre. Danielle looks remarkably strong (physically, not as a dancer) with him. And, I love this song!

Week 6

Janick and Denys – Tango [Edit: Paso Doble]

Possibly at some point I just started taping everything Denys did? Although this was a good tango paso doble (and Janick’s first appearance on the DVD). But I can’t say I particularly remembered it before rewatching it just now.

Amanda and Mackenzie – Afro-jazz

Another one I didn’t remember all that well, but it is nicely done.

Claudia and Jonathan – Hip hop

This one, I actually remembered! Because I was so surprised how good they both were. On rewatch, I remained particularly impressed with Jonathan (and Claudia still wasn’t bad). But don’t expect to see it again, as they’re not top 10, and there’s a tour to promote… [On edit: Or, not so much, apparently...]

Group number by Mia Michaels (results show )

Even though I taped some, I’ve been mostly ignoring group numbers and solos in this list (as it’s already insanely long), but had to include this, as I think it’s possibly the single best thing done all season. Wow. Just, wow.

Week 7

Danielle and Denys – Contempory (military loss)

On rewatch, this really is my favorite contemporary number of the season. I can tell the story without any preamble, it’s incredibly touching, Danielle is just amazing, and Denys is Denys.

Week 8

Edgar and Amanda – Hip-hop mannequins (Luther Brown)

I think Amanda actually held her mannequin positions better than the hip-hop boy, but whatever, it was a very fun number. (Amanda is actually quite amazing, especially given her young age.)

Janick and Jeff – Blake’s jazz fusion

Nice sexy number, with whips and cages! I was impressed how well Jeff, who looks so Pillsbury dough boy, pulled this off. Amazing what eyeliner can do. Great dancing doesn’t hurt, either. (And apparently not offensive often for either to be eliminated, which is good.)

I’ve left off the “Top 4″ show, as it’s not taped yet, but my favorite there was definitely the Sean Cheeseman “royalty” number that Janick and Jeff did. After that, Nico’s contemporary with Denys and Janick.

My picks (not necessarily predictions) for top dancer are 4. Janick 3. Jeff 2. Amanda 1. Denys.