Dexter

We finished Season 1 of Dexter on dvd last night. The script is absolutely leakproof, not one hole in any episode, all 12 episodes tied together seamlessly. The acting all around is pitch perfect; Michael C. Hall is completely believable as a forensics pathologist who moonlights as a serial killer. One could object to the antagonist of the piece being a serial killer, I suppose, but it's a heightened reality we're experiencing. Dark comedy has never exceeded this.

Big Love

I'm currently finishing the Season 2 dvd of Big Love, an HBO series which is in its third season. The primary stars are Bill Paxton as the husband and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloë Sevigny, and Ginnifer Goodwin as his three wives. Yes, they are polygamists.

The first few shows of Season 1 were of course the set-up, and I must say I was not hooked. In fact, I left the series for awhile, but after hearing a Bill Paxton interview on "Fresh Air," I decided to pick up where I left off. Now, I am hooked.

Season 1 deals primarily with how this family of multiple partners navigates the home-side and the public-side of their entwined lives in a suburb of Salt Lake City. It also introduces us to The Compound at Juniper Creek which is an enclave of polygamists who live under the direction of the Prophet, Roman Grant (Harry Dean Stanton), on property two hours away from the suburbs into the desert of Utah.

Season 2 ups the ante as Bill branches out from his business as owner of a big box store into providing video poker machines to shady gambling businesses in the Southwest. This move is complicated by Roman Grant who had the idea first.

Throughout the series, we learn more about how the wives keep the peace, make trouble, manage their shared husband, and deal with their personal histories.

House M.D.

We started watching House M.D. last night. It's better than we expected it to be. Basically, it's Sherlock Holmes in a lab coat except Hugh Laurie as Gregory House doesn't really wear a lab coat. So here's the thing...he's really good at what he does and what he does is investigative medicine, trying to solve the mystery behind why an individual is very ill, a mystery no one else can solve. Add to his intelligence, acerbic wit, arrogance, anti-social proclivities, and an addiction to Vicotin, and you have a very interesting character. Dr. House also relies on his team of young gun medicos who are the sounding board for his profundity. One of this group is House's Dr. Watson, or in this case, Dr. Wilson, played by Robert Sean Leonard who may have the best hair in TV.

Weeds: Putting the Herb in Suburb

In the dark comedy Weeds, Mary-Louise Parker plays suburban California housewife Nancy Botwin who resorts to selling marijuana to maintain her lifestyle and keep her young family together after the untimely death of her husband. In season 1 she's a newbie, learning the game. By the end of season 1 Nancy is the Godfather of Grass, organizing a "family" of growers, sellers, and moneymen. Season 2 follows a story arc of extreme success to extreme distress as Nancy learns that the new man in her bed is a DEA agent and that her competition plays rough.

I'm looking forward to season 3 but I haven't found it available here on dvd.

24

We've returned to "24" and our favorite samurai, Jack Bauer. Season 6 awaits. It's rumored that Jack will face nukes, terrorists and even threats from within his own family. There will be White House intrigue and torture, of course. It's a right-wing love fest!

The Shield

We committed to one season of The Shield to see how we liked it.

Why is this an award-winning show? The acting is just OK (even the leads), the camera work is clunky (to say the least), the direction is all over the place, and the writing is, well, poor. I get the conflicts within the "barn" and the edginess of having morally ambiguous cops, but still there are too many speeches, too many redundancies, too many coincidences, and too many characters in the right place at the right time. Worst of all, the lead character Vic is not sympathetic, and that ruins any chance of his abuses being understood on a practical level.

This is going the way of Lost; after one season, we're outta here!

The West Wing

Wow, just Wow...what writing!

I've been catching up with The West Wing, a TV series I loved but lost touch with due "to and from-ing" between the US and Aus. I've recently watched Season 5 and 6 and I'm finishing Season 7 now. I wish I had watched these last 3 seasons before the recent US campaign for the Presidency. Such insight!

Rarely is TV so entertaining, so involving, so informative, and so well-acted. Hats off to the entire ensemble cast of The West Wing.

The Wire

Family and Friends! Please watch this wonderful series. It is 5 seasons of the best cop series ever produced. You'll be hooked from the very first episode. Turn on the subtitles so you won't miss a word of the best-written show to come to air. The Wire should be required viewing for every one of us.