TV (A looong post about nothin')

PRISON BREAK is back on!!! New season has started!! Now no one tell me anything about the first episode cuz I had to record it instead of watch! :( This was one of the best shows on tv last year and I hope this season lives up to that. If you haven't seen season 1, go buy the DVD or rent it or buy it or something. It's good! (At right: Michael Scofield, played by Wentworth Miller, displays the tattoos that guides his attempt to break himself and his brother out of the joint. Hidden in the imagery are words and diagrams that form his plan.)


A few months back when we were finally able to switch over to cable internet (it only recenty became available in my neighborhood) it included an overall upgrade to our tv cable as well. Package deal, pay less get more. So, part of that was a bunch of new channels...including BBC America. YES! Some great shows on that channel; cool British comedies, a cool new supernatural show called HEX (which I recently learned was canceled so we only get one more set of episodes here in the states before it gone).... Anyway..... New show LIFE ON MARS...rocks. It only started a month ago or so, the ads looked interesting but there are already too many tv shows I try to keep track of so I had been avoiding it for fear of getting sucked in. Then it happened, in a moment of weakness I stopped on the show while channel surfing and after about 5 minutes I went searching through the listings to find when the repeats would be on. This weekend they had a mini marathon showing all the eps up to date. I stayed up late Saturday watching it and it's now up there with Prison Break. Battlestar Galactica, Deadwood and others as shows I won't miss if I can help it. Show description:

Sam Tyler, a cool, sharp young detective, is working hard to keep the streets of 21st century Manchester safe from crime. But his world is turned upside down when the hunt for a serial killer becomes a personal vendetta after Maya, his girlfriend and colleague, goes missing. Desperately afraid she has been kidnapped by the killer, he sets out to find her, only to become involved in a near-fatal car accident. When he wakes, he finds himself in a different era - 1973. Is this reality, madness or a dream?

Sam struggles to understand what is happening to him. Disoriented and traumatized, 21st century Sam is completely bewildered by his new environment. As all attempts to return to his own time fail, Sam falls back on what he knows best - his job. Each episode features a different case, some of the toughest Sam has ever tried to solve - partly because of what seems like archaic police procedure. This is a world without cell phones, where cops rely on paperwork and memory instead of computers, there's no DNA profiling and what forensics do exist take two weeks to process.

Furthermore, his 1973 colleagues are insensitive, unreconstructed cops who regularly intimidate witnesses and are happy to nail suspects irrespective of whether they have evidence. Sam's new boss is hard-nosed Gene Hunt, the antithesis of everything Sam believes in. He gets results by trusting his gut instinct and, all too often, sheer brute force. Most of his team have similar attitudes towards their work including detective Ray Carling who is suspicious of Sam and his 'new-fangled' ideas. At least detective Chris Skelton, despite being clueless, is more affable and keen to learn.

The only person in this alien world who reaches out to Sam is a young police officer, Annie Cartwright, an educated and open-minded woman who helps Sam in his quest to find the truth about his new circumstances, as well as battling to lock up the criminals of 1970s Manchester.

In the first episode, it becomes clear to Sam that the killer who is holding Maya in 2006 started his killing spree here and now in the early '70s. Could catching the perpetrator be Sam's key to returning to the future?

One last quick note about tv stuff before I get back to work. Not that anyone who's watching it needs to be reminded, but DEADWOOD kicks all kinds of ass! Last night was the last episode before the season finale and hot damn is there a storm brewin'!! The only thing I don't like about this show is the harsh language...and I mean HARSH. Now, I'm no wilting flower and my own mouth could be washed out with soap on a daily basis... BUT these monkey-farmers drop F-Bombs and worse in damn near every line. As well written as the show's dialogue is, with it flowery text and brutal delivery, sometimes the insertions of foul language is distraction in it's seeming giddy desire to shock and awe. Granted I have no idea how much swearing they did in the 1870's, it may well be accurate but it's no less distracting from time to time. In the end the main reason I wish the speechifying of these phenomenal characters by these wonderful actors were a bit less salty is that there are many people I know would love this show who I won't recommend it because I know the verbal violence would turn their hair white. I want to share this show with everyone I know but I can't. But, hey, if that doesn't offend you...WATCH THIS SHOW. It's one of those that I always wish was two hours long and makes me wish I worked in an office so I could join in on the Deadwood watercooler talk.