I trimmed another 200 words from the story I’m working on this morning. This thing is going to be a lean, mean fighting machine when I’m done with it. Anorexic, even.
So, another Survivor contestant opened his mouth at tribal and got sent home. Maybe he was on his way anyway, but I don’t think it’s smart game play to publicly identify yourself as one of the weakest players on the team. The other players are looking for excuses to vote people out without repercussions, and he basically gave them permission to dump him. I also question the wisdom behind the way the older team performed in the challenge. I could swear I heard them say that they were going to take turns and if a player looked like he or she was struggling they would sub in someone else. Instead, they let one player cling to the brass ring for far too long. A shame—it really looked like they had their act together before the contest started. It was organized like a well staged football play, only the execution failed to live up to the plan.
Tom Monteleone’s column in the latest issue of Cemetery Dance magazine is about the dumb things people in Hollywood do, using the blanket excuse “No one will notice.” I have to wonder what the hell the executives in charge of decision making for Criminal Minds were thinking when they decided to fire AJ Cook, who plays JJ. They certainly got the fans in a tizzy, and I suspect that a lot of the dialog in the episode was actually aimed at those execs, reflecting the thoughts of the fans and the cast. Sure, it’s an ensemble show, other characters have come and gone over the years, but this decision seemed so arbitrary as to baffle.
This week’s episode of SVU had the usual strident, preachy script, but it had an intriguing premise that was seriously creepy. At first it seemed to be incredible that a man would persecute a woman over such a long period of time, but so sporadically, but when it turned out he was doing it to at least a dozen other women it made a little more sense. Next week’s episode looks interesting, with Stabler and Benson getting new badges, at least temporarily.
Poking fun at Los Angeles culture is like shooting proverbial fish in proverbial barrels. The new Law & Order: Los Angeles seems to be resisting the temptation to make fun and simply point the camera at the culture and let the audience decide how to react. It’s a brighter, glitzier show than the grunge of the belated mother ship, but they’ll have no shortage of material in a city where even the cops attract paparazzi. I wonder what it feels like as an actor to play a part that will probably repeatedly and regularly mock the acting profession. I’ve never been a huge Alfred Molina fan, but he was bearable in the first episode. Another Lost alum makes an appearance in the post-Lost era: Rousseau as the celebrity photographer. And it makes me feel a little old to see Shawnee Smith playing the mother of a twenty-something. (“Mom shoots a burglar, daughter holds a press conference. I love L.A.”) I have to wonder what happens to a girl who has been raised in a bubble when that bubble is suddenly punctured. She looked like Little Girl Lost at the end.
