Miscellaneous thoughts about stuff on TV

[dougo]

The last three episodes of "Monk" have been interesting:

• "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies" featured John Turturro as Monk's brother Ambrose, who suffers from agoraphobia and hasn't left his family's house in 30+ years (since their father went to the store and never came back, or something like that). It had some touching scenes, and had the most serious moments of the show's 25 episodes so far (which is largely considered a comedy-- Tony Shalhoub's performance won an Emmy for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series").
• "Mr. Monk and the T.V. Star" featured Sarah Silverman as a celebrity-obsessed fan of a TV show. She started a petition to get the TV show ("Crime Lab S,F.", a parody of "CSI" and probably "Monk" itself) to change its theme song back to the one used in the first season. And over the closing credits, they played the theme song used in the first season of "Monk", which was replaced in the second season by a really lame one by Randy Newman ("It's a Jungle Out There"). Of course it was only a joke, and they didn't bring the original back for good, oh well.
• "Mr. Monk and the Missing Granny" was the first episode that was not a murder mystery, but only a kidnapping. I often wonder why all mysteries have to be about murders instead of other crimes, and I'm glad they're trying to branch out.

The next three episodes (according to TV Tome) are titled "Mr. Monk and the Captain's Wife", "Mr. Monk Gets Married", and "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail". Hmm...

Some random music-on-TV things:

• I saw Modest Mouse on "Last Call With Carson Daly" today; I think it originally aired the day after the Super Bowl, but it was rerun last night. Modest Mouse is one of those bands that somehow got really popular (in indie rock circles) but never managed to enter my sphere of attention enough for me to actually hear their music. It's my own fault, really-- I should make more of an effort to go out and find things like this to listen to-- but there's enough stuff that does manage to wander into my ears without me having to go out of my way, so I'm a bit spoiled. Anyway, I was glad to finally hear (and see) them; it was nice to hear that particular indie rock guitar sound again (hard to describe-- post-grunge, Sonic Youth-derived but less dissonant) but the song wasn't particularly compelling. They're still on my list of things to check out in more detail some day, but I'm still probably not going to make a special effort any time soon.
• The finale of "Ed" used a Yo La Tengo song for a montage near the end of the show. I recognized the band, but I didn't recognize the song, because I'm about three or four Yo La Tengo albums behind. I used to love them in the May I Sing With Me days, and I liked the next few albums well enough, but eventually I stopped needing to have every new album when it came out and I've never gotten around to collecting the rest from used bins. Anyway, it was cool to hear an indie song in such a prominent spot. Well, I guess the "Ed" finale is no "Friends" or "Frasier" finale, but still.
• A stand-up comedian, Todd Barry, did some jokes on "The Late Show With David Letterman" last Friday about Fugazi and their low-ticket-price policy. Apparently he's opened for Yo La Tengo and Luna. I've seen him on various TV shows before but never realized he was an indie rock comedian... Maybe Neil Hamburger can get onto Letterman some day too.
• Drew Barrymore was on Letterman last night talking about dating someone from the Strokes. I sort of like Drew Barrymore, and I was just starting to sort of like the Strokes, but somehow this makes me dislike both parties more. I'm not really sure why-- I'm okay with Liv Tyler and Kate Hudson marrying into Spacehog and the Black Crowes, respectively, but this relationship seems overly cliched and just... odd. Maybe it's just that the Strokes are always presented as these great saviors of stripped-down-yet-still-arty Rock, reluctant inhabitants of the pop mainstream but still representing their underground roots (not that they were ever really underground themselves, but they like to pretend), but dating a high-profile actress, and not even one with a particularly rebellious image, kind of puts the nail in the coffin of that illusion of street cred.

A week or two ago I was going to post about a confluence of rants on "Fox News Watch", "Real Time With Bill Maher", and "Dennis Miller", all about various freedoms (or lack thereof). Here's some of what I was going to say, though I think there was more that I've now forgotten about:

• Jim Pinkerton has several times on "Fox News Watch" taken an absolutist stance on free speech, condemning the FCC for doing anything but regulate the allocation of public airwaves, and I was considering sending email to the show in support of what he'd been saying, but then this past week he seemed to give a pass to their threats of huge fines over the whole Janet Jackson/Super Bowl thing. Maybe he just didn't want to repeat himself, but I hope he continues to present that stance because it's somewhat rare (all three other panelists on the show have been pro-censorship to varying degrees lately).
• Bill Maher is a tireless supporter of drug legalization, and had a very good rant about marijuana vs. alcohol and the ridiculousness of the Drug War. Later in the same show, though, he went into a rant about how kids are "stealing" music, and brought up some idiotic strawman arguments like "downloading an mp3 is like taking one bite out of an someone's apple-- they still have the rest of the apple". Well, no, it's like taking a picture of the apple, and they still have the entire apple. Yes, I realize that violating copyright is illegal, and perhaps immoral, but it's a very different thing from stealing, and using that kind of rhetoric damages the whole dialog that should be taking place. (I don't want to delve into all my thoughts on this issue right now... maybe later.) Anyway, I was surprised and disappointed that I could both vehemently agree and vehemently disagree with two things he was saying on the same show. Maybe I'm just reaching when I consider these two topics closely related.
• Dennis Miller's new show on CNBC has been pretty interesting so far. He's kind of a puzzle: he's come out as pro-Bush, supports the war in Iraq and the larger war on terrorism, regardless of its cost on our personal freedoms and privacy, but on the other hand, he's all for allowing gay marriage, and ridicules Bush's proposed billion-dollar program to promote marriage to poor people. His rants on this show are somewhat toned down, compared to his HBO show, and it's more about interviews and the "Varsity Panel", which has had a good range of viewpoints, from Lawrence O'Donnell and Naomi Wolf to David Horowitz and, um, some other conservatives whose names I can't remember. (CNBC's page about the show doesn't have a guest list or anything else useful.)

This post is becoming frighteningly long, so I'll save my musings about "The Apprentice" and "Survivor All-Stars" for later.

Comments

[smeehrrr.livejournal.com]

Diana and I play a game when we watch Monk where we try to see how quickly we can figure out the ending. In the 3 pies episode it took about 10 minutes, and Diana got the final twist as soon as the last pie turned out to be empty. The TV star one I figured out before the opening credits. The missing granny had us stumped right up until the end, but I'll contend that that's because they withheld information.

I love the show, but they need to start rotating writers or something, because we're learning how they think now.