Pain Aid

I refuse to write about the will-they-or-won't-they shenanigans of Spencer and Heidi on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!

It's not that I'm against some breezy summer tv, but I just can't let myself be lured into this unwatchable dreck AGAIN. And so, I don't care if Speidi come(s) back (Does one refer to plural grammar rules when referring to Speidi? I'm not sure. I digress...). With Speidi out of the picture for me, I've gone in search of some real summer-lovin'.

Tomorrow marks the debut of Royal Pains on USA. I am going to check it out. Maybe you should, too.

It stars Mark Feuerstein. He's one of THOSE actors, the kind that you know you've seen somewhere, but you're not sure where. To me, he'll always be the guy I used to see almost every morning at the Coffee Bean in West Hollywood. He seemed like a nice enough fellow, and once, when he was sitting at the next table from me as I was trying to be all cool Hollywood writer-ish with my laptop, I overheard his entire conversation and he was being really, really nice and helpful to some wanna-be actor. From that I've always decided he is nice and deserves our support. Plus, he was always smiley and unpretentious and from what I can remember, he used to shuffle in wearing pajama pants.

One the other hand, in researching this little ditty, I discovered he named his child Frisco Jones, so I do wonder about his sanity. Frisco JONES...as in the rocker/spy General Hospital Jack Wagner character. Is this really true? I need to know. Some might say it's ALL I NEED.

Wink, wink.






Anyhoo...the show looks harmless and fun and certainly worth a look. Plus, it's got Campbell Scott, who I haven't seen since the premature cancellation of Six Degrees. I'm glad he's on it, but is it just me or does he always get cast as a douche? Is douche an acceptable literary term? So many questions, so little time.

You can check out a clip below. Royal Pains premieres Thursday night on USA.

Stop Draggin' My Heart Around

It's hard to commit to a new show. Your time is limited, your DVR is packed, but don't you just love it when you find your 'new' Sopranos? Or Sex and the City? I've tried to help over the past year, championing a few long shots that are worth your while, but frankly, sometimes it's a losing battle and it leaves me heartbroken. Call me a hopeless romantic, but I'm ready to fall in love...with some new shows. It's just so hard when you want the newbies to be good and they're just...not.

This is starting to sound like alot of my relationships.

Remember "What about Brian"? It started out as a promising tale of unrequited love and ended in a mishmash of random characters from 90210. (I mean that figuratively AND literally. Tiffani Amber Theissen was brought on late in the game to sex it up.)

And where are you, VH1's The Agency? We had some good times. I thought for sure there would be a season 2. Was it something I said?

And then there's those other shows...the ones that leave you totally hangin' with no closure. As cheesy as it was, I am still bitter that Fox pulled the plug on Reunion before revealing the killer back in '05.

I'll never know why Peter Horton joined the cast of Six Degrees.

And now, I have a funny feeling I will never know the identity of Sam's father on October Road. I know, you're thinking "But I don't watch October Road". And you're probably not going to, but I have been hanging onto that show like it's date 3 with a sorta cute (ok, boring) guy who I agree to go out with again because I'm 36 I'm still optimistic there's potential.

The most recent episode was just so desperate feeling. Not only was there a requisite cringe-inducing montage to Kiss' Rock & Roll All Night (note to TV producers in general: ENOUGH with the montages! Even MTV doesn't play music videos!) but now poor desperate October Road is just pulling out all the stops. A mysterious guest star (hi random casting, it's me, october road...is Armand Assante available?)! The dad has cancer! It's a secret!

I want October Road to be what it set out to be: the weekly updated version of the movie Beautiful Girls. Sadly, it's not. I feel so misled, and I've said it before: I'm just not that into you.

I hate freakin' Valentine's Day.

PS. Welcome back, TV writers! We've missed you. Now, please write me some new shows!

Only the Good Die Young

In my continuing quest to quench my thirst for some good chick tv, I finally watched the remaining (unaired) episodes of Six Degrees on-line. I realize I am possibly one of the only viewers (well, besides the cast & crew's parents maybe), but I think this show got pulled too soon. Most maddening was the fact that the last episode left so many plot points unresolved...presumably, forever. In the final scene, Peter Horton turns up as a handsome stranger next to ice-queen Bridget Moynahan's Whitney. He's a symbol of hope and even though it's literally seconds, we can think that he might've even been the next love interest.

I love me that Peter Horton from Thirtysomething! I would've liked to see that. Guess he's busy these days producing and directing little shows like Grey's Anatomy. Heard of it?

Call me a purist, but I like my chick flick shows to be wrapped up in a nice little bow: just give me my wedding (or funeral) scene and call it a day.

Then of course there's Felicity. This show had a 'fake' pseudo-finale when the characters graduated, then the network threw them a bone and let them shoot four more episodes...which yielded the BRILLIANT time travel episodes culminating with a PROPER finale that included a wedding. That was some good tv.

Well, Six Degrees is in good company. Did you know that shows like Laverne and Shirley, Diff'rent Strokes and The Jeffersons never had formal finales?

I know, I know...you're going to start bitching about the Sopranos. That doesn't count...THAT cliffhanger was planned.

Maybe I'll wake up like Bob Newhart and realize it was all just a dream.

The Discovery Channel

With the dog days of summer upon us, it seems like the fall season is just sooooooo far away. What's a tv obsessed gal to do? And what better to do on a rainy day (Ok, not really a rain day. Actually, what better to do on a perfect sunshine-y day, the kind when people might recoil in horror to know you spent it not at the beach but, in fact, inside your apartment watching tv...but I digress) than unearth some programming to watch!

Turns out, ABC has decided to burn off the leftovers of such shows as "Six Degrees" on the internet. So, if you have no life and are curious about the "lost Josh Charles" episodes, you can watch them here:

http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing

You can also re-visit some dearly departed friends like "What About Brian?" What ABOUT Brian, anyway? The premise of that whole show kinda went out the window, didn't it? From a wayward single guy's trials and tribulations amongst a couple clogged zone, to a modern day Thirtysomething.

If only they'd had Miles Drentell to spice things up, we might still be asking, um, what about Brian?