State of the Show: Terriers

So this is where I would normally recap what I saw as the strengths and weaknesses of the series' latest season, then offer my thoughts on what direction I'd like to see the show take next season.

But "Terriers" was CANCELED! Therefore, NO MORE "TERRIERS!"

For what it's worth, I would have voted for more Done in One episodes concentrating on contained cases without an overarching storyline. I think this approach would have gotten the two leads together more and showcased their chemistry and banter, which is really the strength of the show. WAS the strength of the show. AAARGH!

OK, it's been a few weeks since the last episode, and I'm still dealing with the loss of the best new show of 2010. But I'm also trying to look at it with a little perspective. Really, nobody watched it, and it's as simple as that. Is it frustrating to see some of the junk that's passed off as programming nowadays that people actually do watch (including, come to think, a seemingly ever-increasing number of shows literally about people collecting junk)? It sure is. But FX is running itself as a business.

And before we rip on FX with too much intensity for letting this quality show die, we must remember that at least we got to see the whole run of the first season, and that's because the show was on FX, or at least on cable. When a network show gets rejected by the public to this extent, it's gone. We got a bunch of good episodes of a fine program.

Yeah, the marketing for the show may have been all wrong, the title may have done irreparable damage, etc. But viewers had many weeks of opportunities to sample "Terriers," and they did not. So what can we do? I think all I'm gonna do is look back fondly at the season we got and hope that the next time a show this good hits cable, it sticks around longer. Hey, I did my part on this one. America, you'd better step up next time (I'll let you know when that time arrives).

State of the Show: Rescue Me

I approached this super-sized fifth season (18 episodes isn't such a big deal for the networks--although soon it may be) with a mixture of apprehension and eagerness. On one hand, the fourth season ended poorly, giving me the impression the show had gone off the rails and was out of ideas. On the other hand, I thought it could turn around, and the first few seasons were so good, I desperately wanted it to be that good again.

Season 5 started out with a string of great episodes and compelling storylines, with the series maintaining its raucous humor while reintroducing some of the serious themes that had been deemphasized. In particular, "Rescue Me" got back into exploring the messy, painful world of 9/11, with a French journalist interviewing the guys in the firehouse about that horrible day (a solid device to get the characters to deliver some monologues) and Franco dishing his conspiracy theories. Michael J. Fox added a spark as Janet's new boyfriend, wheelchair-bound, pill-popping Dwight.

Unfortunately, the promise of these episodes faded rather quickly, and it was soon apparent that instead of using the extra-long season to experiment, like maybe to alter the storytelling to feature some tighter, longer-playing arcs, "Rescue Me" was gonna settle. This season wasn't bad--I think it was a step up from season 4--but it really didn't go anywhere for most of the season, revisiting already explored ground and focusing on comedy.

There were lots of good story ideas that ultimately didn't pay off. They either just faded away or were resolved abruptly. I'm talking the 9/11 stuff, Lou's wedding, Garrity's cancer, Mike's band, Tommy being a sponsor...on and on and on. The one storyline that DID survive all season is the Janet/Sheila/Tommy triangle--probably the one that most needs resolution already. It flatters no one, except Tommy in the sense that he comes off as such a magnetic sexual dynamo, and the women look worse and worse as it drags on.

So where are we after the season finale? Well, Teddy has shot Tommy and left him to bleed out--not my idea of a great cliffhanger, but I guess if someone is gonna do it, it might as well be Teddy (whose own Angel of Death storyline never really went anywhere). Denis Leary and fellow showrunner Peter Tolan hint that Tommy could even die and come back as a ghost, but I don't think so.

Janet and Sheila are still obsessed with Tommy, and it's gone to a cartoonish level, with their catfight in the finale a new low. Oh, yeah, Tommy's youngest daughter is as big an a-hole as everyone else in her family. If seeing how insufferable she was at her new fancy school wasn't enough earlier this season, she bragged in the finale about how she locked the babysitter in the basement and doped up the baby so she could take off with her dad. Tommy's personal life is getting so annoying, I yearn even more for the firehouse scenes, where the characters are a-holes, but they're entertaining a-holes.

Here's what I want to see in season 6: Tommy survives the shootings, but there are consequences, and not just for him. Teddy's character is done--write him out except for occasional jailhouse appearances (and even that's been done on this show before, after he went after the driver that killed Tommy's son). The guys in that bar who let Teddy do that should struggle with this for a while.

Resolve the Sheila/Janet thing. Pronto.

Try to make the characters viable in their own right instead of just disposable props for Tommy's storylines. Give them good arcs and follow through. Concentrate on good dialogue and situations rather than vanity showcases like the singing Garrity and Mike got to do this season.

I still enjoy "Rescue Me" and look forward to it each week, and even when it goes over the top, I find myself laughing. But I think this season wasted the great opening run it delivered early, coasted through much of the season, and ended on a sour note. A coasting "Rescue Me" is more entertaining than much of what else is on TV right now, but these guys can do a lot better.

State of the Show: Lost

I know there are still plenty of unsolved mysteries left in this series, but this past season answered so many that I don't really care about the rest.

Oh, I'll be watching next year, and I anticipate some more twists and turns, but in a sense, it's all anticlimax at this point, isn't it? I don't know that there's any way they can top the flash-forward that blew all our minds when first unveiled, and now that we're "caught up," I'm not as intrigued by anything else. But this is a good thing.

You see, while there are many more questions the writers can answer, I don't think they need to. I don't really care so much about the Dharma Initiative and Hanso and all that stuff. It would be nice to have that explained, but I won't tear my hair out waiting for it. The thing I liked best about "Lost" from the beginning was the human interactions among crash survivors in a desperate situation, not the sci-fi or mystery elements. I would have welcomed more focus on the sociological element and less on the show's mythology these past seasons. Now, some interesting dilemmas were raised and resolved, and I enjoyed most of this past season.

But my hope as "Lost" goes forward is that the creative team stops focusing on "Why?" and starts just showing us some more "What." As an example, we apparently know Sun hates Jack and why. OK, that's pretty cool. Show me what happens now. It's been set up. Let's run with it. I don't want a lot of flashbacks at this point. If you want to tell the story of what happens on the island while the Oceanic 6 are gone, fine. But I don't need to keep plunging into the character's distant pasts.

My point is that there is plenty here to work with and material for all sorts of compelling stories. Unfortunately, I fear that the show's producers can be a little too infatuated with their own mythology, or that they think the public demands more and more twists and oddball tangents. I believe it would be a mistake to try and top the flash-forward finale that so shook up the structure of the series two seasons ago. Next year, I'd like to see maybe two tracks: the Oceanic Six returning to the island and life on the island. Period. Fill in a few details where necessary here and there, but keep the focus on clear storytelling using these elements that have already been developed. I like some of the characters and am tired of some others, but the fact is there are enough that the audience cares about one way or another to go forward and continue to tell their stories in a straightforward manner.

The powers that be might be afraid people would complain that a more direct, less mystery-oriented show wouldn't be "Lost," and for many fans, I guess it wouldn't be. But it could be excellent.

State of the Show: Desperate Housewives

After posting my little bit about the season finale in "Shark Bites" last week, I started thinking about this show a bit more, and I concluded that maybe the reason I was so unimpressed by the 5-year flash-forward that ended the episode was because I'm a little tired of "Desperate Housewives."

This season was a critical success, with Dana Delany singled out for revitalizing the show. She does indeed deserve credit, but I'm not so sure the show was revitalized overall. Gary Cole, always fun, revitalized things. Carlos losing his sight revitalized he and Gaby, and Bree was entertaining this year, but I'm really getting fed up with the other Housewives.

Lynette's self-righteousness, her terrible mothering, and her bratty kids have grated on me for some time now, perhaps because I get the impression (perhaps inaccurate) that she is supposed to be the most grounded, most reasonable, most--well, sane of all the women. I've found Teri Hatcher an appealing TV presence ever since "Lois and Clark," but the charm is wearing off her Susan. It isn't Hatcher's fault as much as it is the writing staff that insists on making her do mind-bogglingly stupid things each time out. It's like they felt the need to amp up her idiocy since they scaled back her klutziness. I mean, that stunt in the finale where she tried to change her baby's name without Papa Mike knowing? Come on. That was just stupid, and not in a rompy-parody kind of way. it just made the character a clown.

I think the show had some strong points this year and remained entertaining, but I find myself more and more distracted. My wife and I still make it a habit to watch the show together, but I'm generally doing something else while it's on. It's just not a show that can fully engage me.

This brings me to that finale. First of all, the tidy "two birds with one stone" resolution of the Gary Cole and Justine Bateman storylines was all too convenient, and worse, it felt all too much like the shootout that took care of the Laurie Metcalf/Tom's Baby's Mama storylines a while back.

Then there was that flash-forward. It was interesting, I guess, but what about it will make someone more likely to see the show? Supposedly we're going back and forth next season, but I wonder if show head honcho Marc Cherry killed off interest in "the present" by showing us so much about the future.

The one shocker was Susan apparently not being with Mike Delfino, and this may have been the costliest move of all. My wife was not so much intrigued by what happened to Mike as infuriated that he wasn't there. She said she wanted to stop watching the show because of that. She was joking--I think--but still, it wasn't a crowd-pleasing development. I don't know how it'll play out, but they might have sacrificed some audience goodwill for shock value.

Not every show is "Lost" and can get away with this sort of thing. In fact, the gimmick really did revitalize that ABC hit. Ratings were down for "Desperate Housewives" after the strike, but that's not unusual for serialized network dramas, so it's hard to say if it's indicative of something specific to the series or a reflection of a larger trend. Either way, Cherry clearly felt he had to do something to shake things up. The flash-forward may have been the most Desperate thing to ever happen on this comedy/soap, and it's a reflection of how stale some of the characters and situations are right now.

So I'll be back in the fall, but again it'll mostly be out of habit, and I'll be curious as to what the "5 Years Later" montage means, but that in and of itself isn't enough to make this appointment viewing for me. I'm not even sure what could be done to make it so at this point. I might just be burnt out a little bit by Wysteria Lane.