Author: R.A. Porter

  • Mad Men: “The Jet Set”

    What started 10 episodes ago, with a copy of “Meditations in an Emergency”, appears to be coming to a head in one more week as Dick Whitman pays a call on his past. Director Phil Abraham framed the penultimate shot of Don on the couch in Palm Springs as a mirror-image of the reverse angle of Don that ends the opening credits. As surely as Mad Men is about Don Draper, next week will be about his alter ego.

    But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There was a beautiful hour of television between those two shots.

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  • Life on Mars – F**k you ABC.

    A few months back I watched the pre-air for ABC’s first attempt at translating Life on Mars to our shores. It was a rough experience, mildly ameliorated by the participation of Colm Meany and the lovely Rachelle Lefevre. ((I’m convinced this redheaded siren is going to take her sly, knowing smile and husky voice to great heights someday. This was not to be that day.)) My feeling at the time was that Jason O’Mara – another in the long line of British Empire expats clogging up our airwaves – was a black hole from which not even the charisma of those around him could escape. My first thought was that he was too focused on his ‘R’s to worry about acting, but Ireland’s mostly rhotic. Some other complexity of the Amercan accent, then.

    Seriously. He was bad. It didn’t help that I was comparing him to John Simm who brought a lot of intelligence and wit to to his original version of the character. It helped him even less that Meany played Gene Hunt much quieter and calmer than Philip Glenister and still blew O’Mara off the screen.

    So when LoM was retooled I figured for sure O’Mara was going to get tossed aside for an American who could really sink his teeth into the character and stand up alongside a great character actor like–

    Oh. Everyone and everything else was tossed? Meany, Lefevre, David E. Kelley? Gone. The LA setting? Gone. But Jason O’Mara and his leather jacket stayed.

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  • Pushing Daisies: “Circus Circus”

    A brighter-colored, quicker-paced episode than the season premiere, tonight was at about 80% strength. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed both episodes, but Olive’s too isolated in the convent and no one’s broken into song yet. As soon as Kristin Chenowith gets her butt out of that habit and into the habit of singing again – or Ellen Greene blasts out a number or Raúl Esparza comes back and sings Air Supply ((Okay, that only makes sense to about a dozen people, but they got a giggle out of it.)) – then I’ll know Pushing Daisies is fully back on track. Still…

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  • Charlie Jade recap: “Bedtime Story”

    Forget it, Jade. It’s Cape City.

    Remember what Charlie does for a living? In case it’s been so long that it’s slipped your mind, this week’s episode should refresh your memory.

    Back in his own bed and his own universe, lying beside Jasmine, Charlie finds himself unable to sleep. He’s anxious and confused and guilty, wondering what to do to save Beta. The water doesn’t even taste right to him, but spirits do the trick. Both in his glass, and haunting his memory. Blues comes to him in the night and tells Charlie he can go back to being the man he was, but Charlie’s not so sure. So he tells her a story.

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  • Mad Men recap: “The Inheritance”

    The only thing anyone can be sure of inheriting from their parents is their genes. We can also be sure of keeping scars as reminders of the ways in which they failed us – ways in which their parents failed them – growing up. Those of us who are lucky have only a few, faded scars. Then there are the Petes and Betties of the world.

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  • NatGeo Carves a Larger Niche


    I’ve got a new favorite network, I think. Time was, a geek like me could get his fix of funky stuff on TLC or Discovery, but dinosaurs and interior decorators rule the waves over there. Don’t get me wrong; I’ll still watch MythBusters or the occasional special, but for wonky engineering stuff – bridges, skyscrapers, nuclear reactors – I’m headed to National Geographic Channel. Or, in the hipster patois: NatGeo.

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  • Presidential Debate #2

    Alright, the VP Debate liveblog went okay. It was a so-so turnout, but for the first week of DreamLoom to have that many people show up was still pretty impressive. There were a few technical difficulties with CoverItLive, but one of the engineers there said they’d have five times as many blogs running for the VP debate as for the first Presidential debate this year and had only estimated a doubling. Apparently we weren’t the only ones snarking in real time.

    So next week, let’s snark some more. A lot more. Which means more of y’all need to come on by. And please invite your friends of all political persuasions. We were a bit of an echo chamber for the VPs and that’s not what this site is about.

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  • Pushing Daisies: “Bzzzzzzzzz!”


    W00t! In six minutes, almost all of season one was recapped in the pithiest bit of exposition I’ve seen in a while. The universe, the characters, and their relationships were laid out with the usual charm and panache (always helped by Jim Dale’s marvelous narration.) Toss in a little foreshadowing about Emerson and his missing daughter and before my favorite coroner can say, “mmhnn,” last year’s quirkiest show is off and running.

    Having spent a really long time with these characters this spring and summer while banging out a spec script, I know their voices like my own. There were nights I went to bed and heard them speaking to me – not a bad thing when it’s Chuck or Olive, but a little off-putting when Emerson wanted his say. It’s been a while since I polished off that spec, so the voices had faded a bit. Now, they’re deliciously fresh again.

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  • Vice Presidential Debate

    Sarah Palin-o-lithic and Joe Biden-his-time will be going at it tooth and nail this Thursday. Come here to join the conversation as we liveblog all the political theater.

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  • The Shield: “Game Face”

    Thought we’d try to get things off with a bang, so tonight we’re going to be LiveBlogging The Shield at 10pm EDT.

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