Desperate Housewives - Is It Officially Back?

I watched Desperate Housewives faithfully the first season and was excited about the second. Then of course, the second season started, and it was so inferior to its first season, I got bored with watching it about 10 episodes or so into the season and like so many others I just stopped watching. I didn't go back to watching even though I am aware that the quality of the show picked up towards the end of last year, but it still wasn't of the same caliber as the first year.

Well, this week after watching a favorite of mine, Grey's Anatomy, a repeat of Desperate Housewives aired in place of the pre-empted Six Degrees. Well, imagine my surprise when I watched the entire episode and it was excellent! It was over the top, it was funny, quirky, it was like old times. I know I am not the only one who took notice, since I saw critics and several different week-in-review shows mentioning Desperate Housewives, which use to happen often and hasn't so much in the last year.

The episode had Jackie Conner (yes, as in actress Laurie Metcalf best known as Roseanne's sister) as a woman who just found out her husband was cheating on her. She takes her gun and goes down to where he works, a supermarket, so that she can talk to him. She takes everyone in the store hostage, which included several of the main characters, and those who didn't listen to her when she said to stay put, well, she was quick to pull the trigger. It may not sound funny, but if you're at all familiar with Desperate Housewives, you know it was with the way it was executed.

While the ratings for this show have never waned all that much, critical acclaim has for a very good reason, the show was not deserving of it. Plain and simple, they lost their way last year. I think people stayed around more out of habit than thinking the show was as good as it was in the first year.

Let's hope this episode signals a permanent change in the tide.

Bond, James Bond

I miss Pierce Brosnan.

Daniel Craig was miscast.

You've likely been seeing commercials for the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale. I keep seeing the same commercials and every time I think, why in the world did they cast Daniel Craig?

Apparently this 007 movie will be more violent than past ones, it is supposed to be good, and Daniel Craig does a good job. I don't doubt any of this, but I still maintain, Daniel Craig was miscast. It also seems like they may be changing the tenor of the movie to suit Craig. The most violent? James Bond movies are not supposed to be that violent, they should be action-packed, contain humor, and a little romance with a Bond girl. If you change the formula, you are no longer making a James Bond movie, just a movie, even if it turns out to be a good one.

James Bond is supposed to be "the guy that every man wants to be and every woman wants to be with." With Daniel Craig as James Bond, it's more like "the guy every man wants to be and some women want to be with." Craig's pull is not worthy of the 007 role. It's just not. He may have something very attractive about him in the role. I don't know. But I don't look at him and think women would fall over themselves to get to this guy, and you're supposed to think that. That is a very big part to this role. I've seen Daniel Craig in other movies and I also wonder if he can pull off the twinkle in the eye and quick smile that are also so much a part of this character and his ability to lure attract women. I have serious doubts.

I hope I am wrong about him, but I don't think I am. Even if the movie is great, I have a feeling it won't have the feeling of a 007 movie, and it should. I also have a feeling that during the movie and afterwards, I will miss Pierce Brosnan and I doubt I will be the only one.

Studio 60 Gets Full Season = Premature Pickup

For those who haven't heard Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was given a full season order by NBC. Now, as I wrote before, this show has a lot of potential, but it has yet to prove it has any sort of staying power, and it's quality has been sub-standard. They were originally given an order for additional scripts. This was a good move by NBC. It would be a shame to scrap a show with this sort of acting and writing talent. However, this news of a full season pickup comes very soon after the script order announcement, and before any of the new scripts have been implemented. Those scripts better have been worthy of an Emmy nomination to get a full season order. The show has not shown any improvement since my last posts (if anything, it has gotten worse), so it appears that this pickup is premature.

Maybe the new scripts came in and they were so spectacular, a full season was ordered on the spot because it was well deserved. But it seems like the reality of the situation is that the same people who called this show brilliant originally are the same people making the decisions right now, and it would have been better to see if the new scripts and the corresponding new episodes connected with the audience before ordering the entire season.

NBC is not doing nearly as well as they expected to do this year, and I think that is the real reason behind this premature full season order. In fact, the show they are finding the most success with, Heroes, is one of the shows they were paying less attention to, this alone should tell NBC they may be off their mark in deciding what audiences would love to see.

Studio 60 does have the makings of a great show, but having potential and realizing it and turning it into something special are two very different things. If you remember I wrote about how Heroes was a show that had a lot of potential and that if you stuck with it, you wouldn't be disappointed. I think very few of us have been disappointed since we decided to stick around.