Blogging A to Z: Once Upon a Time

I admit, I've had some trouble getting into Once Upon a Time, but the premise is unique and I want to like it, so I've stuck with it.

Storybrooke, Maine is stuck in a curse where are all the townspeople are former fairy tale characters. A bail bonds woman comes to town by request of Henry, the son she gave up for adoption, who happens to be Snow White's son passed through a portal from the fairy tale realm before the curse set in. Got all that?

The show does a nice job weaving tales from the other realm with the current day. In the fairy tale world, Snow White is kind of a rogue, looking more like the princess from the new Snow White and the Huntsman movie coming out this year than the lily white Disney version. The evil queen - who is Storybrooke's mayor in the real world (and Henry's adoptive mother) - makes sure you know with every dramatic stare she is The Bad One.

Lots of great characters inhabit Storybrooke: 

Rumplestiltskin: resident skeeze

Clean cut prince

Am I wicked enough for you?

Why You Should Watch: It's something different; light enough to not drag you down, but edgy enough to set it apart from Disney fare. Don't think to hard or it's kind of hard to buy, but if you're into fairy tales, chances are you're already watching and enjoy the show. Also promising: the show was developed by producers from Lost and and includes a former Buffy writer.

Factoid: Speaking of Lost, there are lots of crossover nuggets including Storybrooke's clock set to 8:15, a reference to Lost's Oceanic flight 815, and the fictional Apollo candy bars exist on both shows.

Blogging A to Z: New Girl

New Girl is in its first season on Fox (hooray for a good show not on cable!). It's a lighthearted comedy about a group of late 20-somethings living together. Zooey's Jess moves into a loft with three guy roommates after her long term relationship ends.

The show smartly takes the focus from Jess to equally feature the guys and their quirky escapades (along with Jess' model bestie Cece). Nick is a self-depreciating law school dropout miserable in his job as a bartender. He and Jess have a lot of romantic tension that is explored at times but thankfully not too much. Schmidt could've been a one-note metrosexual (do people even use that term anymore? seems most appropriate), but he's morphed into a delightfully strange control freak who seems like a walking issue of GQ complete with grooming advice. Winston still feels a bit underdeveloped as former basketball player returning from an overseas traveling team only to find he has no idea what to do with his life. I particularly liked the episode where he tried to cram in all the pop culture he'd missed for several years prior to a job intereview.

Why You Should Watch: As more adults delay marriage, living situations like this are increasingly common. While the show mostly remains light, a few more serious themes are explored, and each character struggles with at least one aspect of where they feel stuck in life. This says a lot about our culture actually, that we have milestones to acheive, and when those aren't met, we aren't quite sure what to do. Also, Schmidt is hilarious.

Here are some memorable Schmidt quotes to get you started:

• "Where in the room do I look sexiest?"
• "I'm gonna have to run all the way home and I have my slippiest loafters on!" 
• "This is a horrible neighborhood. There are youths everywhere!" 
• As sexy Santa: "I have a really bad case of Santa Lap. The entire marketing department is wearing wool. It's not good down there." 

Factoid: You probably all know this, but Zooey sings with indie artist M. Ward on the project She & Him.

UPDATE: New Girl has been renewed for season two -- yay!

Blogging A to Z: Mad Men

Another alliteration day: Mad Men

Mad Men is worth watching for the beautiful styling and acute attention to period detail, but it's also a darn good show. I love that while the characters embody a glamorous lifestyle, the show does not flinch from realties that are far from glamorous. Women are clearly belittled, while at the same time fetishized through affairs. Great clothes or not, being a woman corporate America in the '60s must have sucked.

The man behind the suit, Don Draper, really runs the show. He's a dapper marketing genius, and also a bit of an a-hole. He does what he wants because he can, and it's a testament to the writers and actors that we still sympathize with Don at all. He's not really Don - he's Dick Whitman, man transformed who runs from his own dark secrets.

I love the supporting cast of Mad Men; while January Jones disappointed pretty heavily in last summer's X- Men: First Class as a character completely devoid of any personality, she shines as Don's wife Betty. She's fairly miserable, kind of a brat, but again, we sympathise because she's stuck in the suburbs all day while her husband stays out late with other women. This goes unspoken for a long time but the subtle revealings of Betty's knowledge about Don's life are heartbreaking.

Much of the heart of Mad Men comes from Peggy's storyline. She's a plain girl trying to angle her way to success, and she's one of the most relateable characters. She's not beautiful or sexy, and she's naive, but not for long. As she grows thicker skin, so do we, and we see her less as a victim and more as someone who can take control, in small bites, of her fate. This mirrors what women were actually going through at that time, and it's a reminder to us that it wasn't so long ago that the workplace was that sexually discriminatory.

Why You Should Watch: It wins Emmy awards for a reason. Every actor pulls their weight, and it's a fascinating look at culture, specifically the marketing/media empire that shaped where we are today.

Factoid: Producer Matthew Weiner removed a song because it would not have been released until a few months later than timeline in the episode. His attention to detail is that aware.

Blogging A to Z: Lost

Today's letter is "L." How could I not feature Lost?

Believe it or not, I was a casual viewer of Lost for awhile. Let me tell you, it's not possible to enjoy the show catching episodes here and there because I could never figure out what was happening (Imagine how confused I was when half the island time traveled). It's serialized drama at its best, but that's also it's one setback: so much mythology and lore fill Lost it can make your brain fog.

The show is best viewed in a DVD/Netflix style binge, which I finally did for seasons 1-5 just prior to the final season airing on TV. Beginning with the epic plane crash, through the countless iterations of mythology and treks across the island, Lost is a masterpiece television ensemble full of memorable characters. Some of them even die. I will not spoiler (a show that is off the air, mind you) but I was a bit peeved when one of my favorites bit the dust early on. And another a season later. While I have to say I knew Jack and Kate would make it to the end, the constant threat of death felt pretty real for a lot of the characters. Toying with that concept by sucking some of the castaways to a different timeline was an interesting twist I hadn't anticipated.

Why You Should Watch: It's already a television classic with it's unique spin on sci-fi, drama and adventure. While the ending didn't satisfy as much as I'd hoped, the journey to get there was certainly worth it. Also, Sawyer is pretty awesome.

Factoid: Lost is all about factoids. The show brilliantly fed clues to the mystery of the island throughout the series, and used this in their marketing.

Blogging A to Z: The Killing

OK, so I can't manage to watch EVERYTHING, so The Killing is a show still on my To Watch list. But since it fits the type of shows I'm featuring for this month's series, I wanted to include it.

The Killing takes a real-time approach to the investigation of a murdered teenager in Seattle, with three intertwining storylines. The show has been compared to as varied shows as 24 and Twin Peaks - even if you never watched it, the tagline mimics Twin Peaks' "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" That's inriguing enough for me. After enraging fans with a cliffhanger season ender that refused to tie up loose ends (Lost anyone?), the series returned April 1 with even more twists. So maybe catching up after the fact will provide a more satisfying experience. Season 1 is available now on Netflix streaming.

Why You Should Watch: Well, I want to watch because it's been critically acclaimed, and given that AMC's other dramas - Mad Men and Breaking Bad - are two of my favorite shows, I know the quality is there.

Factoid: The Danish did it first: this series is based on a series that first aired in Denmark.

Since I don't have a lot to share about this show, I'll leave you with a letter "K" throwback from the early '90s sketch comedy show The Kids in the Hall:

Lastly, if you've enjoyed my A to Z TV theme so far, please check out some of my TV feature articles at slackerheroes.com.

Blogging A to Z: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

To post on Tuesday 4/10/12

I initially confused It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia with Sonny With a Chance which is a Disney kids show and not at all like the very not-kids It's Always Sunny. OK, I can't believe I just admitted that. It's pretty embarrassing. The only similarity is the word sunny and even that's spelled different. I mean, look:

Moving on, It's Sunny is a little difficult to explain since the premise is so basic. A group of friends in Philadelphia run an Irish bar, hilarity ensues. You could say it's Cheers for the slacker generation, since none of these guys have their lives together and are overall a hot mess of immaturity and ineptitude. Often hilarious, sometimes irritatingly so, this show is pretty wacky, but later episodes solidify into a groove. You can catch this as new episodes air on FX, or reruns on Comedy Central and I hear WGN is running them now, too.

Why You Should Watch: I got my first glimpse of the show from a clip that went viral online with a cat in wearing "kitten mittens" to keep it from being so loud (cats + internet = success!) If your humor trends that way, you will like this show.

Factoid: The pilot episode is rumored to have cost only a few hundred bucks - or less - because it was filmed by handheld camera with all the actors working for free. Danny Devito was added to the cast in season 2 - and there's your Cheers connection!

Blogging A to Z: Hart of Dixie

Not every show can provide gripping drama and intricately weaved plot lines. But sometimes we need a break from shows that make us think to watch something lighthearted and full of pretty people.

I bring you: Hart of Dixie.

I've blogged about the show before and its confounding appeal: Rachel Bilson as a doctor isn't entirely believable, but I like her. She's a little neurotic but has heart (hart?) when it counts. She relocates to po-dunk Bluebell, Alabama after her real father, unknown to her at the time, leaves her his medical practice in his will. Given she lost out on the surgical position in NYC she'd been working toward, she took the opportunity and moved to Bluebell, a town similar in concept to Gilmore Girls' Stars Hollow with its chatty neighbors and no secrets approach to small town life.

A supporting cast with former Friday Night Lights actors doesn't hurt. Plenty of love triangles and town secrets weave through each episode, but it's mostly kept light, and at times is legitimately funny. I  kind of heart Wade (in the leather jacket above), but I could take Zoe Hart with any of the guys pictured above.

Delightfully goofy Lemon is just the right combination of southern belle and hardened debutante all whilst looking like a walking Easter egg. The show at least tries to be complex with some added story lines about Zoe's estranged father (her perceived father who remains in NYC, not the deceased one) and Lemon's mother who abandoned her, which provide common ground to the two who are usually at odds.

Why You Should Watch: Pretty people, pretty setting, lighthearted fun that's manages to entertain despite its predictability.

Factoid: Scott Porter (second from right in the cast photo) played the other half of the fake 80s duo in the film Music and Lyrics with Hugh Grant - the band called Pop! That movie wasn't so great, but all the stuff about Pop! was hilarious.