Pop Culture Curmudgeon February 2009 Archives » 2/7

Bill and Sookie Are Totally Together in Real Life

How funny that Kristen Stewart and Mr. Floppy Hair himself Robert Pattinson keep getting bugged about being in a relationship when they aren’t, yet a much more fun vampire couple IMO has been a couple for like ever and no one knew. (Well, some people thought it was a possibility, but it certainly didn’t get the level of press speculation heaped on our friends from Twilight.)

Stephen Moyer, 37, and Anna Pacquin, 26, have confirmed their relationship to TV Guide. The age difference kind of bugs me (I can’t imagine being with a 26-year-old at this point in my life), but my feelings about it confirm that the whole Milo Ventimiglia-Hayden Panetierre thing would not have squicked me out anywhere near as much if Hayden had been in her 20s.

Because I love love, I wish my two favorite vampires from books made into movies/TV shows all the best. And I totally can’t wait for the next season of True Blood, even though I’m still in denial about the murder at the end of season 1. Oh wait, I loved True Blood season 1. Does that mean season 2 will suck?

Edited to add: In July 09, Moyer and Paquin announced that they are engaged. I still think the age difference is a little skeevy, but I wish them all the best. Read more about it here and here.

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Yay! Supernatural Was Renewed!

One more season of the Winchester brothers gracing our screens.

This Is SO Not Something I Want to Smell

What do (retired) porn stars smell like?

I don’t want to know, but apparently someone thinks porny lady Jenna Jameson is a good candidate for a celebrity perfume.

I guess I’m more likely to buy this than some of her other products (if you know which product I’m referring to, then you understand why I don’t want to link to it–it would require me to add an adult content notice to my blog), but there’s nothing that could make me proud to buy and wear Jenna Jameson’s signature scent.

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We're Watching TV Again

The LA Times reports that television viewing is up. It’s no surprise that we’re watching more TV–we can’t afford to do anything else!

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Should the First Season Suck?

I experienced the joy of streaming Netflix over my Xbox 360 last weekend.

I watched the entire first season of 30 Rock, which I didn’t catch the first time around.

Then I tried to watch the second season of Weeds. I loved the first season of Weeds, but I didn’t get to see the second or third seasons. When we got Showtime a while back, I was so excited to be able to watch Weeds again, but the fourth season was awful. No Conrad, no Heylia, Mary Louise Parker sinking into depths of bad motherhood that apalled me, and very little funny stuff. Because it was so awful, it ruined season 2 for me.

That made me think about other shows that had awesome first seasons:

Chuck–continues to get better and better
Big Love–totally meh since season 1
Veronica Mars–continued to be awesome, but season 1 was definitely the best.
Heroes–they keep promising me that it will get good again, but it has been disappointing since the anti-climactic season 1 finale
Friday Night Lights–stuttered a bit in season 2, but definitely back on track with season 3
Supernatural–same as FNL, had some issues in season 2, but they worked through them and it remains a solid show.

I also thought about shows I didn’t watch in their first season:

Seinfeld
Friends
Gilmore Girls

These are three of my favorite shows of all time. Maybe the key to a show’s longevity and continued artistic growth is for me to only begin watching in season 2. Or at least for me to not really care about the show after season 1.

Really, I think the key is the premise. Gilmore Girls explored family relationships, and Seinfeld and Friends explored the relationships among groups of Friends as they tried to make lives for themselves. The other shows I mentioned didn’t have a premise that was sustainable.

Veronica Mars had a compelling overarching mystery that was hard to top in subsequent seasons. Supernatural was slightly less reliant on its overarching mystery the first season, but it struggled to find something as strong as the boys working to find their father in the second season. Thankfully, the CW gave them a season 3, and the show has gotten stronger since then. Heroes keeps trying to cover the same ground over and over again. (I mean seriously, think before you kill off a character with a useful power. Giving Isaac’s power to paint the future to Parkman is just tacky.) Friday Night Lights suffered from network interference during its second season.

But, Chuck is my star. I didn’t think its premise was sustainable, but they continue to put him in situations that work while keeping true to the character’s roots. Other showrunners could take a lesson from this show.

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I Kind of Feel Sorry for Joaquin Phoenix

None of us really get what he is doing, and he is taking it personally. But if he could explain to us what he is doing without looking and sounding as if he has completely gone off the deep end, perhaps we would understand it better.

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Actors vs. Studios: Will It Ever End?

I was so busy focusing on the Oscars this weekend, that I didn’t even notice that SAG said a big hell no to the AMPTP’s “final offer” from last week. Can’t they all just get along?

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