Drugs, Rock'n'Roll, and...

Everyone does drugs, whether it is something as innocuous as a cup of coffee to something potentially dangerous like falling in love, to the totally dangerous stuff like crystal meth. While I do not condone the use of the dangerous stuff, I try as much as possible to live and let live with the lesser drugs. My preferred drugs are caffeine and television. This week promises to be a good week for my fix. First, Amber Tamblyn* joins the cast of House on Monday evening. Second, Burn Notice returns on Thursday evening, and it looks like they are keeping Coby Bell** on the cast—insert very loud ‘Yay!’ here.

Over the weekend my craving for new music blew up, and I bought two albums at Hot Topic. Selfish Machines by Pierce the Veil*** is a wonderfully seamless set of post-hardcore songs. It is listenable, without sacrificing screams and earnestness. Linkin Park has produced an amazing concept album, A Thousand Suns, which shocked and gratified me. It has gravitas and maturity, and it is worth every penny.

Finally, the bowl of vegetarian pho I had at Pho 14 on Park Road Saturday afternoon constituted one of the most fulfilling erotic**** experiences I’ve had in ages. The flavors, the textures, and my own decision to take time and enjoy it—it was better than sex. I’m still happy just thinking about it.

---

*Whom we love not only for her excellent performance as Joan in Joan of Arcadia, but also for her excellent chemistry with Jeremy Renner in the all-too-short-lived The Unusuals.

**Whom we love for being totally hot, as well as talented and cool.

***Who may well be the best-looking band on the planet; usually there’s one or two unattractive people in a band, but all of these guys are totally hot, and musically talented.

****Erotic in the sense of a deeply moving physical experience.

TV: Cops and Vampires

I forgot one other summer TV show in my last round-up: The Glades. Again, this show demonstrates what great casting can do. Matt Passmore is dead-on as the jerk-with-a-heart detective, and all the other characters (the hard-pressed buddy, the geek, the conflicted girlfriend, and the conflicted girlfriend's growing-up-to-fast son) fill the constellation of the show well. Most of the episodes are well written, and the camera work eschews the glare of CSI: Miami. (In fact, I'd say the camera work is even better than that of Burn Notice, the other Miami-based tv show.)

With almost all the tv shows I watch, I usually do something else while watching them. The writing is light enough, and the plots formulaic enough, that I can follow the show while picking up the apartment, playing with the cat, even studying sometimes. This paradigm does not hold for The Vampire Diaries. When I watch the show, I have to sit down and stare at it (unless I stand up and stare at it, which happens). I talk back to the show, I tell the characters what they should or should not be doing, etc. The show is much closer than the Meyer oeuvre to how my inner teenage girl would write vampire stories. And given that they have killed off characters I thought would be returning, I can honestly say that when I watch it, I'm not sure what will happen next. Also, they eschew the weird pseudo-religionism of Supernatural, which makes the show much more palatable (although I still love Supernatural, if for no other reason than the rare glimpse of Jared Padalecki's forearms - *swoon*). The Vampire Diaries is simply a well written vamp-teen soap opera, with engaging characters, multiple plot lines, and enough sufficiently creepy situations to keep me riveted all the way to the last second of each episode.

Which brings up the question: has anyone read the books, and if so, how do they compare to the TV series?

Summer Television Recap

I watch too much tv. I have it on in the evening, but I'm usually doing other things around my apartment, such as rearranging my books, picking up the apartment, doing the dishes, surfing the net, playing with Manuel, etc. Still I've developed opinions about what to watch and what not to watch. Here's my brief review of this past summer's shows:

1. Burn Notice is still the best summer show. It drooped only a little bit this past season, but over all it stayed strong. The casting remains excellent, and the addition of Coby Bell only served to strengthen the mix.

2. Rubicon is the best new show. Again, it comes down to casting, and James Badge Dale is a brilliant choice for the lead. (Also kudos to Dallas Roberts as the obsessive analyst and Arliss Howard as the Geffenesque boss—complete with gay lover.) The show is so quiet and understated that the understatement becomes part of the creepiness factor. I adore this show.

3. Syfy shows all have formulae, and the formulae are starting to wear thin. I watched Warehouse 13, Eureka and Haven, and I'll still watch them, but as a rule I wouldn't miss them if I spent the evening out with friends. Warehouse 13, due to its strong casting (C. C. H. Pounder is a goddess!) is still the best of these three, and I hope they bring back Claudia's love interest "Todd" (Nolan Gerard Funk—total hottie!).

4. Royal Pains and White Collar are still good shows. The Closer is still epic and at times moving. On the other hand, Rizzoli & Isles did not live up to the hype. It had a potentially good cast hampered by bad writing (they couldn't decide if they wanted another The Closer, or another Bones.)

5. Covert Affairs frustrates me. It features not one, but two total hotties, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Christopher Gorham (whom the directors have been taking pains to show shirtless as much as possible—and he is BUFF!). But the writing is really sloppy at times. The Iraning asylum-seeker episode was downright offensive. I watch it for the flashes of eye-candy.

6. Dark Blue went from disengaging and glacial to downright awful. Even the Logan Marshall-Green eye-candy couldn't pursuade me to tune in by the end of the season.