Fall TV!

Monday:

“How I Met Your Mother” – so funny! Sitcoms aren’t totally dead as a genre when this show has managed to have laughs and a heart about friendship and romance.

“Heroes” – I like it so far. Don’t care for the storyline of the mutant Honduran twins. I believe that the storylines of the Bennet family, the Petrelli family, Hiro and Ando (who are a great buddy pair) are the heart of the series. I’m not missing Nikki (the blonde mutant) or her mutant husband D.L. Sure, their precocious kid Micah has a cool power, but the real question is whether that kid’s going to use it for good or evil (he can telepathically manipulate electronics) – which will be interesting to watch. And, yeah, I’m referring to them as “mutants” – so the Powers That Be of the Marvel’s X-Men world might come after me for that – or not, since “Heroes” is pretty much handling decently the portrayal of the crazed lives of those who have powers.

Tuesday: Kind of watching “House.” Was irritated with him because he won’t change/grow; know full well he won’t; but still, it is entertaining, as I watched the 2nd episode of the year this past Tuesday. Actor Kal Penn as one of the new candidates to be part of House’s team; yeah – an actual Asian American doctor on tv! (a stereotype in its own way, but yet to show up with great regularity on tv). Three news doctors to join House? Hmm…

Wednesday: “Life” – so far I’ve watched the two episodes aired so far. Kind of like the show – don’t get the weird mystery of how Detective Crews is trying to pursue who framed him for murder and why; don’t care for how the stern female lieutenant is using Crews’ new partner (an alcoholic pretty female cop trying to get her colleagues to take her seriously; and she is way too serious) to try to get Crews out of the LAPD; don’t care for the misogyny of the LAPD (you really expect me to believe that in the year 2007, male LA cops resent having to work with female LA cops? Check that – that may be the only accurate thing on this show) – but I do like Adam Arkin (he’s a good character actor) and I do like Damian Lewis (who’s so convincing playing an American and a weird American at that – he plays Crews as a deeply troubled sort who’s trying to reconcile with things – even if he’s behaving too much zen to those on the outside who have no clue as to his inner turmoil).

On the other hand – this may be a show that NBC could end up botching (after all, I was the one who actually liked “Raines” – goes to show you how much of a sucker I am for eccentric cop shows).

Otherwise, interesting little profile on Damian Lewis on MSNBC.

Fell behind on watching Ken Burns’ “The War.”

Baseball on HDTV has been amazing to watch.

Gloomy Monday

Saturday – 9/29/07 – went to Shea Stadium with my siblings. Was pretty dejected over the Mets’ Friday night performance, so didn’t want to go; they won, with John Maine with an one-hitter game; 13-0. However, left the stadium feeling that the job’s not done; pins and needles for Sunday’s game.

Sunday – 9/30/07 – watched the game more or less on the big screen HDTV. In only 20 minutes, the game imploded. Mets’ season collapsed in a stunning fashion. Tom Glavine, the Hall-of-Famer, gave up 7 runs; the rest of the team left 10 people on base. We’re all pretty depressed over this. On the one hand, what is wrong with the Mets – got to blame the whole team. You give us a terrific outing on Saturday, and then blew it. On the other hand – well, I had my feeling about how far we were going to go with this season. But, really, how much more heartbreakers are we going to get around here?

Final thoughts on my SoCal vacation:

Kind of funny that California considers the HOV lane to cover cars with 2 or more people in it. Saw too many cars with only one person in it. And, was that smog, fog, or smoke from the wildfires in the air?

Getty Villa, as beautiful as it was, kind of was still a rich man’s re-creation – an artificial feeling to me – which only became more real when you look at the real stuff – guess the Getty had to return a lot more items to Italy than I thought – but at least there’s culture in LA after all?… Oh well.

Liked the sun a lot; should have bought sun tan lotion, but figured that since I wasn’t a beachgoer I should have been fine; wore a hat more than I usually ever have.

Oh, and pandas! … otherwise, I don’t think I care for zoos anymore…

So would have liked seeing Chinatown, Koreantown, Little Tokyo, but time ran out.

Ah, First Monday at the US Supreme Ct., with all the previews to go with it.

I’ll soon put up a post on my fall tv thoughts…