The Morning After: Still Kicking?

There's TV on Wednesday?

What's Bionic Woman?

I caught Pushing Daisies last night - pretty good episode, and as always, guaranteed to make you happy. Plus more singing! (Chenoweth and Ellen Greene, this time, on They Might Be Giants' Birdhouse in Your Soul...not a huge number, but cute nonetheless). As a (very slight) negative, I will note that last night's "special effects" looked a little lower budget than those we've seen before (although still not bad by any stretch)....still, everything fit and was extremely whimsical and cute, which is how I like my Pushing Daisies.

Daisies is still doing it for me -- nice to see it was picked up for a full year -- but I tuned out of BW after the second episode, and that's despite its BSG-producer pedigree.

As far as Daisies goes, rather than awkwardness, I thought the overly-fake animatronic pigeon only added to the show's visual charm. Plus, any show that can get away with flying a plane into a building and not having any creepy connections to real life must be doing something right.

DSM is a fantastic show. After House, it is the show I most look forward to this season. Peter Krauss and Donald Sutherland are fantastic!

James, I know you're still on the Kid Nation bandwagon, so all I got to say is: OMG Taylor!

I don't see why everyone is so down on BW. It's not 'OMG this is the best show ever' but its certainly enjoyable enough. In my mind, it's like Jericho or Torchwood. Its worth my 40 minutes on the Tivo, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. The writing is acceptable, the character conflicts are interesting (Jamie nearly killing her supervisor. Not bad!) and Sarah is psycho enough to keep me intrigued.

Also, I was just floored to realize that Michelle Ryan had been doing EastEnders for the last several years. I had no idea she was faking an American accent - and doing a great job at it too!

@William - I'm wondering if Taylor's parents have changed their last name and moved to another town since Kid Nation debuted? Who would want the world to know that they have raised such a spoiled rotten beauty pageant child?

I still find it interesting that the kids keep making the best choices for rewards. Are they doing it because it is the right thing to do or because they know the world will be watching what they do?

@Keith: Somehow I suspect that Taylor's parents have completely enabled her bad behavior, and probably applaud her for "standing up for herself."

Pushing Daisies was marvelous last night. I loved the intro with boy and dog running for an embrace, realizing, then both stopping short.

It was nice to change up the settings and format a bit this week. The beekeeper dancing was adorable too. I liked that Chuck picked her feet up and just let Ned spin her toward the end.

DSM is enjoyable. There are moments of greatness (re: Nick's guilt over not having done any charity work yet, his fight with his wife, really all the scenes with him and his wife, Bryan's home falling apart and his impending divorce) but then there are clunky, Hallmark moments of forced drama (re: "Dad, I want a job", "I'm so proud of you" 180? Yeah...)

Also, I'm really getting sick of the sister who loves Nick storyline. Can we just have the DNA results come out that her and Nick are brother and sister and be done with it? That plot is dragging the show down.

I'm loving Pushing Daisies - everything about it is so good. There are lines that just make me giggle..

As for DSM, I agree with the Hallmark moments comment - last nights episode has several scenes that were a little over-the-top. But there's enough good in it that I'm still watching.

@William

I thought Taylor was a spoiled princess, but on the other hand, I also think the others are bullying her because she's a "princess."

I'm not an avid watcher of Kid Nation, but here's the part where I tuned in, the "council" was forcing her to load up a water tank all by herself. (note that when she refused, it then took the entire TOWN to contribute to help fill out that water tank. how many trips would it have taken Taylor by herself to do it?) Then, it appears the other kids trap her in a room and won't let her leave, until the green leader decides to let her out to "cool down." Lastly, it seemed that Taylor was assigned dishwashing duty as opposed to cooking duty just to piss her off. I did expect her to just storm off and abandon B-City.

So yea, I don't condone spoiled princesses, but I also don't condone picking on little girls. I'm pretty sure I'd spill the water onto the ground as well if some other kids told me to fill a water tank all my myself. (and I'm a fairly reasonable person) It's important to stand up for yourself if you're being picked on.

Lastly, I really like Life on NBC. I know it's not doing that well in the ratings, but it's quirky and I like it a lot.

Regarding the Taylor situation, I was uncomfortable with the town meeting when people were yelling at her to go home, but that's because I want a redemption arc for her. I don't want her to give up and leave; I want her to improve and help out. Probably not going to happen, but maybe it'll be edited that way.

@Vinny C.: Taylor's not "standing up for herself" and she's not being "picked on" or "bullied". She's "doing zero work" and "getting away with it" because the council has no real leverage to be able to enforce a punishment of filling up the water tank. They're not even able to keep her in one room for more than a minute so they can talk to her (the way you phrase your description of this makes it seem like it was an additional punishment, whereas it was a spontaneous response of frustration to her refusing to even stay in one place to listen to them).

Dishwashing vs. cooking was irrelevant. Taylor didn't do the cooking when it was assigned to her (or at least, she put it off, as she did with the dishwashing this episode) and she doesn't want to wash dishes either. If there was a motive behind giving her dishwashing duty instead of cooking, it was probably so that the rest of the town doesn't have to wait for meals until she decides she's going to start working.

Also, nicely done with the phrase "don't condone picking on little girls". In four words, you managed to sneak in an assumption that it was "picking" in the first place, to imply that anyone who disagrees with you does condone "picking on little girls", to be condescending about age and/or size (whichever "little" refers to) when other kids her age and size in Bonanza have been doing the work, and to use a gendered term to portray her as someone to be protected and not asked to do equal work. I'm quite impressed with the misdirection packed into that phrase.

@Allison - Ditto! You go girl!

I think Daises is the best new show on, and I'm glad to know that other people are watching it. Every commercial break my husband and I turn to each other and say, "This show is so good!"

Haha. @Allison. Here's the thing, I used the word "little" because it DID seem to me that she was physically smaller than the others. Did that not seem true? Like I said, I don't keep detailed track of the contestants, but it seemed to be that (a) she was relatively young compared to the others in the barn who were trying to talk to her and (b) she was relatively small sized physically when compared to the people who were trying to lock her in the place to have a talk with her.

Here's the thing about keeping her in one room to talk with her. I agree that it was important for the older kids (council kids) to be able to have a reasonable conversation with Taylor. But... at the same time, it seemed clear to me that if Taylor wants to leave that room, the other kids don't have the right to trap her in a room. It almost seemed like she and the blue kid were going to devolve into fisticuffs. If it were grown adults doing that to a grown person, it would be tantamount to false imprisonment. Just because you need to talk to someone doesn't mean you get to trap them. I realize B-city is a "lawless" place, but still.

And if it helps about the gender, how about I say instead "I do not condone bigger kids picking on littlier kids." There, I said kid instead of girl. Does that make you happy? I said girl in the first place because Taylor is in fact a girl. But... I can totally make it gender neutral.

Lastly, look, if the kids can't stand Taylor, they they should evict her survivor-style. But don't use physical force (which is what the other kids were doing when they leaned on the doors that Taylor obviously couldn't open). It's true, the town elders didn't have any leverage to get her to fill the water tank, but I can't see any justification for trapping her in a room, even if there are good intentions to talk to her. If you don't consider that bullying, please describe what you would consider so. Tying her up in order to talk to her?

Consider it a tough love intervention whose time had come.

@Keith: Thanks for the support. And to address your reward question that I missed the first time around, I think your second option definitely plays a large role - that the kids are very conscious of how their decisions will be judged. I especially say this because in some cases, I thought the supposed "good"/"wise"/"mature" decision was the wrong one, though I can't remember which ones those were now.

@Vinny C.: "There, I said kid instead of girl. Does that make you happy?"

Happier, yes. There's still the other three objections. (It was the combination that made the gender-specific term stand out as an attempt to take advantage of the possible connotation there, not solely the technically-accurate use of the word "girl.")

You're still phrasing "lock her in a room" as if it was a concerted effort to imprison her. It was two kids holding doors down, with the second kid seeming to be yelled at by others not to do so, and her being allowed to leave after these two (from my point of view, misguided - she wasn't going to respond well to that - but not line-crossing) incidents.

"Lastly, look, if the kids can't stand Taylor, they they should evict her survivor-style."

If they could, I'm sure they would, based on the fact that people were yelling at her to leave at the town meeting (which I felt did cross a line because there were just so many of them). That's not how the show works.

BW - yes i'm still watching. It's not bad, but it's not good either. I actually thought that ep 1.5 was pretty good. It's slowly getting better and improving. I thought that the CIA guy and Tech guy were good. I love the Tech guy (he actually made me laugh) - i hope his role increases.

MR was good - her performance wasn't flat or anything. They need to keep the lighthearted and funny tone of this ep.

I think the main problem for BW is the many behind the scenes changes that have happened. Especially with the production staff and writing staff. I have read somewhere that Katims has left and someone else has taken over.