Contradictory

I can fully explain my tastes but I can't account for them.

For example, I've been itching to confess my current tv guilty pleasure. It's not American Gladiators (I tried to watch, I don't get it). It's not Lost—that's not a guilty pleasure. My guilty pleasure is Las Vegas.

I could say that I started watching Las Vegas because it immediately follows one of the best scripted dramas on tv and one of my favorite shows of all time, Friday Night Lights, but that would be a lie.

Truth is, I don't know why I started watching Las Vegas. I didn't even like it very much way back when but I find that I look forward to the show with something akin to enthusiasm. Bizarre. In fact, now that Tom Selleck has replaced James Caan as the paternal figure, I like it much more. (Of those two, I'd pick Caan every time as the better actor—maybe that was the problem? No one does cheese as well as Selleck, though he brings some gravitas to silly roles these days (see: Friends).) I was never a big Magnum P.I. fan, though I watched it a little, so it surprises me to find Selleck appealing.

I have many reason not to like Las Vegas. First, it's set in Las Vegas, in a casino, and I hate both of those things. Second, all the women look like supermodels (so do most of the men), which is unrealistic and anti-feminist (though a subplot recently had a guy break off his engagement because his fiancée got too skinny). Third, the plots are paper thin and the character development is minimal.

So, why do I like it? Maybe because it's so easy to watch. No thinking required. It's like candy, pretty, empty candy. This season, the show is at its goofiest. The remaining cast of characters has melded into a little dysfunctional family. (Three major characters are gone, replaced by two new ones and a third promoted from within the ranks.) I consistently like that: family values shows about unlikely families.

Make no mistake, even though none of the characters are related, this show is about a family. With the departure of James Caan and his wife (Cheryl Ladd) the only actual blood family was lost. The daughter remains. She is knocked up by, but not married to, the leading male character. (They had casual sex many seasons ago and, after many twists and turns, have ended up in "real love.") Two other characters get married by accident—but guess what!—they really love each other and stay married. Add one misanthropic "I'd rather be single" female character and Tom Selleck, mostly benignly, watching over them all and it's a perfect little group of mismatched characters who do their best to take care of each other. The question should be, how can I not like this show?

Maybe completely tossing reality out the window is why it works for me. Seriously, there is no way this motley, beautiful, crew could actually run a casino. But the show is fundamentally good-natured, which endears it to me. Dark things happen, but rarely (jettisoning a good chunk of the previous cast has cured that), and everything gets resolved in a happy, loving way. No, it's not a good show, but I will probably keep watching it.

What I can't quite reconcile with my liking of Las Vegas (and ability to write at length about it) is my excitement about seeing Smiles of a Summer Night this weekend and my disappointment at having to miss one of the more obscure Bergman's playing immediately prior.

I'm a mass of contradictions—but interesting ones, I hope.

Grateful for: varied tastes.

Friday Night Lights

Are you watching this show? No? You should be.

You probably think the show is about football and maybe you don't like football so you think you won't like the show.

It's not about football. It's about people--as all great books, movies and plays are. And great television too. There IS such a thing as great television, as HBO has taught us (see exhibits: Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire and Deadwood). There is great network television too. And I don't mean Lost (not knockin' it, it's just not what I mean).

Watching an episode of Friday Night Lights a couple of weeks ago, I thought, "The relationship between the father (the coach) and his daughter is the best thing in this show." Then I realized that in a show ostensibly about teenagers, the adults were fully realized, sympathetic characters. How rare is a show where BOTH the adults and the kids are treated like full human beings? All of the adults in this show have flaws and good points. One father, who looks to be a philanderer, shows incredible compassion for his daughter when she's in a vulnerable position. Another set of parents have to defend their decision to sue the school and the coach to their paraplegic son (injured during a football game in the first episode). Eventually, the son takes his parents' side, but it's not an easy thing.

The show is set in small-town Texas, a world that is rarely featured on TV. The characters come from different classes, which is also unusual since most network tv is unrelentingly middle-class. It's also racially diverse, but there seem to be precious few Hispanics given that it's set in Texas. Maybe it is realistic, but I can't say.

If you haven't seen the show yet, give it a try. It may only last this season--the network keeps moving it around on the schedule and the rating are low--but you can get caught up on all the past episodes via the INTERNET. How awesome is that?

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that the coach is played the man who, if had a type, would be my ideal: Kyle Chandler. Sigh.

Now showing on Wednesdays at 8pm, NBC (Channel 4 in DC).

Grateful for: good tv.

Drop me a line.

The Avengers

On Sunday night, CK invited some friends over for dinner and a marathon of Avengers watching. CK is a more devoted Avengers fan than I because she values the Tara King (Linda Thorson) episodes almost as much as the Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) ones. I'm all about Diana Rigg and only Diana Rigg. I'm so enamored of Diana Rigg that when I was in London for a college trip in the late 1980's I went to see Follies (a Sondheim musical) just because she was in it. She was great, of course. To this day, if she's in it, I'll watch it.

The Avengers is one of those things, like Born Yesterday, that I can't bear interrogating. I just love it. And I also can't stand sniping. I didn't realize that until Sunday night when Kat, one of CK's friends, made many disparaging, unappreciative comments about the show. She didn't mean anything by it particularly, but her criticism, as mild as it was, irked me. It also made me inclined to dislike Kat.

If you aren't familiar with The Avengers, let me tell you what I like about it (not necessarily in this order):

1. Diana Rigg.
2. Diana Rigg's outfits, particularly the black boots and the blue jumpsuit.
3. Diana Rigg's hair.
4. Some (but not all) of the byplay between Mrs. Peel (Diana Rigg) and Mr. Steed.
5. The entertaining plots.
6. The low, low production values.
7. The way Mrs. Peel kicks ass--literally.
8. Mrs. Peel is as likely to rescue Mr. Steed as he is to rescue her.
9. Mrs. Peel's Lotus Elan.

When I was a teenager in Seattle, episodes used to come on at 1:00am. Many a night I found myself staying up an extra hour or half hour to watch the show. I recruited both Amanda and Audrey to watch with me and I like to think they shared my enthusiasm, though neither were as obsessed as I.

You may recall my mod phase--an obsession with Emma Peel went hand and hand with that. She was my female mod ideal. Strong, independent, smart and stylish. My hero!

When I was in grad school, a boy who I dated a few times gave me a box set of Avengers videos. I was so touched I couldn't speak for a minute. We were both poor but he spent some real money and got me the perfect gift.

Last, the Seattle band, The Allies, got some radio play with their song Emma Peel. I used to have it on a tape of Seattle bands--a tape I loaned to a friend who never returned it. Too bad.

Grateful for: Mrs. Peel.

Drop me a line.