DearEvette

I dunno. I am cautiously optimistic about BET. When they presented BabyFace with his Lifetime achievement award, they had a great cross section or representation of his work from his very, very early days til now. I mean, they reached back and got Tevin Campbell! But then they left off Karyn White... so we'll see.

My feelings of Skyler and Walter changed from the start of the series to the end of the series. At the start I was very sympathetic toward Walter and did not like Skyler at all. Mainly because I thought there were instances where she came off and somewhat insensitive to his fear of his cancer. And she made it about her rather than about him. Also her involvement with that awful Ted Beneke. But as the show went on, I began to like them both especially when they became a real team. And then Walter began to become very problematic and my new found liking of Skyler faltered when she began to suggest that Walter needed to kill Jessie. And finally Walter became irredeemable so that by the time the show ended I was not Team Walter at all (but still i liked him better than the Neo-Nazis). However I had come to really like Skyler and am glad she stood up to him. Never warmed to Marie, though.

This is so true. It was another reason i had an issue with that tribute. Why this song in particular? Yes, everyone knows he wrote it, but it is more strongly associated with Sinead than it is with Prince. When I hear that song in my head I hear her singing it, not him. I mean, I am sure it was a big Billboard hit, but even Billboard does not chart it as one of Prince's hits. Sigh. Anyway, BET better pull it off cuz you know they'll get dragged if they don't. LOL.

I think eating most fruits is supposed to shorthand for sexy or suggestive. Something about the juice...or the shapes

oooh, i have to put myself in column that checked 'NO' on that Madonna Prince tribute. She sounded like she was straining for notes and she really did not feel like she had any connection to the song at all. It lacked emotion and had zero real energy.. I saw that she was sad, but man, she did not imbue the song with anything other than just generic onstage performance. Nice outfit, though.

Well at least it explains why there was no big send off. Shonda really didn't find out until last month. I'll bet the 'going to New York' thing was a plan for her to go and make up with Penny and they'd come back to Seattle. I mean time jumps are no issue. I just still can't imagine they'd invest so much time and effort in Penny only to write her out like that. She seemed like a favorite and SR doesn't relinquish her favorites easily. On a rational note, I do like how she addresses all the departures on the show. I am sure there have been some BTS drama with some of the departures but her explanation sounds so much more reasonable than all the lurid speculations that seem to accompany every single actor exit from the show.

I am beginning to wonder if they simply had no time to write anything more. SR first tweeted a "that's a wrap" tweet about Torres on April 27th. That was the first people had an inkling she might not be coming back. That is when it was reported that her contract was up in June along with a bunch of other people. I am wondering if the Preminger grant/custody case storyline was a way for the show to hedge their bets. if she was in the middle of contract negotiations it could go either way and the show had to go on They couldn't definitely write her off if she was coming back and they couldn't write her story in such a way that fans would be expecting something for S13 if she chose not to renew. I figure that Arizona winning custody was the "Sara stays" storyline. And when she didn't re-up, they had to quickly write her out. The finale didn't wrap til May 5th. Their finale table read was April 21st. So I'll bet Sara's negotiations fell through sometime right before that last table read, since her tweet was only a week later. It was likely too late to do a re-write with some huge big send off thing and they already had so many other things going on in the last episode. Also makes me wonder about Samatha Sloyan. Was Penny always going to be written out no matter what and it dovetailed nicely with Sara leaving? Or would she have come back if Sara stayed?

I'm like "who?' And thus your point is proven....

CBS just geenlit the spin off of The Good Wife to co-star Christine Baranski and Cush Jumbo. But apparently it is gonna be on their All Access channel, the one you can subscribe to. I don't watch CBS so I am not sure what the deal is with the shows they are putting on their All Access channel first or if they plan to ever actually show them on Broadcast. They are doing the same thing with their Star Trek reboot. Also I am not sure if this was mentioned already here, but on AMC's Preacher (airing tonight) they've race bent the main female character Tulip, from the comics. One the tv show she is being portrayed by Ruth Negga. I've tried to comic but am not a fan. But I've read Alan Sepinwall's review and I am intrigued by his take on it, so I'll give it a try. Also i like Ruth Negga -- in my head I have her cast as River Tyburn if they ever really do turn Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series into a tv show.

I liked Glee in the first season. I didn't like it as much second season but I kinda stuck with it. But I completely tapped out after the episode where after Kurt's father & Finn's mother were getting romantically serious, Finn and his mother were invited to move in with Kurt and his father. Finn and Kurt were expected to share a bedroom even though Kurt had made it blatantly clear he had a major crush on Finn. Finn was completely uncomfortable with the situation about sharing a bedroom with someone who was interested in him sexually. But the script made Finn call Kurt's room "faggy" so all of the, imo, valid issues Finn was having got completely swept away and he was made to look like a bad guy. The writing imbued in Kurt all sorts of gay victimhood at the hands of a hyper masculine homophobe Finn. Even though it was actually Kurt who was somewhat of a predator when it came to Finn. Imagine if Finn had been a girl and Kurt a hetero guy who had made his sexual interest in her obvious? They would have never been expected to share a room. I hated that entire episode, how it played out, how it created homophobia where there really shouldn't have been any, and how it completely ignored Kurt's inappropriateness.

The Chest Peckwell thing has always infuriated me because I thought it was left purposely ambiguous for no other reason than to create discussion. IIRC, it was a he said/she said situation with enough wiggle left to create enough doubt as to whether you believe Jo was telling the truth or not. Sympathy is always going to be with the woman so people would automatically conclude that Jo was telling the truth. But what If the guy was telling the truth? He was adamant enough to want press charges. Then what Alex did after the fact was despicable just as Derek made clear. And while I do like Alex, what he did to DeLuca was horrible. I hope the show doesn't make it go away after a lame apology or something. Alex needs to get some sort of comeuppance.

As a fellow book nerd, rant on! Sorry. Carry on with tv talk!

I think it was definitely Meredith. I hate the idea of the triangle, but you know what I would love? I would love it is this show actually surprises me next year and 1) Megan is really, truly dead and 2) it turns out that Riggs can;t deal with Mer's brand of drama and finds out that he actually likes Maggie instead. So many years later and this backstage drama b/t IW, TRK and KH is still a defining element of this show. At the time I sopped it up with a biscutim because, hey I love backstage gossip. But years later, I have come to actually believe that Shonda has a right to be however much a boss that she has to be to keep the trains running on time on her show. IIRC reports after the fact seemed to indicate that ABC had the situation pretty much handled in house and behind the scenes quietly, but apparently somebody didn't think that was enough so the story got leaked. No matter who you like or what you feel, doing something that causes negative attention to your boss or your company is not a good idea. it almost feels like whoever leaked the story was trying to force her and ABC's hand. Now remember she was the only black female showrunner on a major network at the time and the pressure of that had to be enormous. The whole "have to work twice as hard to get half as much' is not a myth. You can imagine that backstage implosions that reflected badly on ABC would have had much bigger repercussions on her than a white male showrunner. She couldn't afford to lose control of her people like that. Back then this had no resonance for me. Now I am a bit more woke, so I get it now. So yeah, in hindsight I have no problem with her bringing the hammer and taking no shit. Even outside of Hollywood and amongst us regular poors, if you get into a dispute with your boss (unless it has a legal basis) you are gonna lose all the time. No matter how righteous your position you are going to lose. And it has nothing to do with how awful your boss is or how wonderful you are it is the nature of the corporate (and because I know all to well, Academic) beast. I agree with your hope for Maggie. I hope she gets a real good romance worthy of her. I am also not a Penny hater, per se, but I don't think he show did the character any favors. I almost wish she had remained a bit of a screw up who learned & grew as the season went on (no Callie romance) instead the the wondergirl they made her. I think if the show had made the fans want to like her instead of kinda forcing her on us as this perfect person (in a horrible romance with Callie) then her reception would have been better. Oh well. I am not at all invested in her so I am not sad that she is gone. And finally I would grade this season overall as a positive as well. Before this season started I binged Netflix over the summer of all the old seasons and comparatively this was pretty high on a sheer "enjoyable to watch" scale.

Even when they are "diverse" it is still overwhelmingly men. I think when they do a diversity pie chart, that teensy sliver that represents WOC is basically Lucy Liu. LOL.

I think I want to preface this entire post with a: This might be a minority opinion but.... LOL RE: The whole episode. Predictable or not, I really liked it. There was something very comfortable and soapy about it. And everybody got a little moment to shine. Even Cross. RE: Caliie - I am not really upset about Sara/Callie leaving. I liked her and Arizona as a couple, they were one of the better couples in Grey's history as it relates to actual on screen chemistry, but I really neither liked nor disliked Callie on just a basic character level. I just never really connected with her so her leaving doesn't in anyway make me mad or sad. I do think the way Arizona just popped in with such a generous (and imo disruptive for Sofia) custody agreement was just stupid. But I almost feel like it was writer expediency. The way it all panned out, it almost feels like Sara's decision to leave was really last minute so they had to wrap something up quick and try not to villainize her but leave the door open in case she wants to come back and this was the best they could come up with on the fly. RE: Jo - Even with the gaping plot holes surrounding her identity and all the multiple questions surrounding it ( like, doesn't she need a license to practice medicine? Is she committing fraud etc.) I can kinda get behind her reasons for leaving & hiding. But what I can't get behind in any way is the absolute lie this woman lived and the deception she practiced on a man she is supposed to be very much in love with. A man she was hounding early in the season about his level of commitment to her. I mean she was giving him major, major shit early on about Izzy's eggs. Whereupon Alex had to remind her that Izzy was actually his wife. But she remained accusing him of possibly having "Alex and Izzy babies" out there somewhere while she is just relegated to a "let's get a dog girl." Now we all know that this stuff with Jo is a poorly thought out retcon, but it is now canon. And because of that she looks like an utter shit. I mean, Stephanie got more criticism for breaking up poorly with a guy she barely knew, than it seems Jo is getting for how she is treating Alex. She basically pulled a long con on him. And to add insult to injury, she suggest having a baby almost as as a palliative measure because she won't marry him? Like if it is so dangerous to confide in Alex about some vengeful husband in some misguided attempt to protect him, how is adding a baby to the mix going to make things less dangerous? Wouldn't that just make things worse? Not exactly smart to bring a kid into such a situation. Full disclosure -- I don't like Jo, never really did so of course this isn't exactly changing my mind. RE: Meredith - I loved Meredith this episode. i think she completely rocked it. Yeah she was holding on too much to the "one true love" deal and was tactless with the Christina thing, but when it matter she stepped up. RE: Maggie - I also loved Maggie this episode. She is the anti-Meredith and it works. And I think the show has finally gotten a handle on how deliver her personality. I've liked her so much as the season progressed so that she's become one of my favorites. A far cry from how over-the-top I found her early on. And also, as much as I don't want a sister triangle and really liked her with DeLuca, I have to say, I think she has better on screen chem with Riggs than Meredith does.

Ha! Jo is shady as fuck. Sure everybody suspected she was married, but the actual reveal feels worse somehow. She lived an entire lie, didn't trust Alex enough to confide in him at all, tried to compound it by bafflingly offering to have a baby instead! (WTF?!?!) and then proceeds to finally confess ... but not to Alex, but to DeLuca. Seriously? This is some trifling shit right there. I actually like this episode, it felt packed with stuff. And there were some great lines: I also liked Richard's comment to Owen who was waiting for Amelia to return: I hated the scene with Ben and April. And then it changed and I thought it was great. Good work by Sarah Drew especially during that C-section. Yow!

I think each show has a live tweet personality. But I agree most of them are terrible to follow and are just used as another advertising vehicle. But some are a blast. I haven't watched Scandal since... I dunno early season 4, but the S1 & 2 Scandal had some of the best live tweets. Not so much the people involved in the show, but the fans tended to be witty and snarky and struck a balance between irreverent and fannish. And the actor who plays David Rosen would get into twitter fights with people because he really had no filter. LOL. Empire has a good tweet fandom. They have no fucks to give. At all. I do like it when a show has a technical person who chimes in, though, and give some insight to technical aspects. Those can be fun. Grey's Anatomy has a Medical twitter where somebody tweets the facts behind the medical stuff going on the show. When The Wiz aired (also a totally fabulous live tweet to follow) a twitter account, Black Broadway -- I think, tweeted all sorts of interesting facts about the original broadway play during the show.

This is a great comment. I was rooting for Bob to win -- It is like when, say Jay McCarroll or Christian Siriano won on Project Runway. I feel like it was really earned. But I have to admit, I loved Naomi's whole family and for a brief few seconds would not have minded if she won. But then I would have been mad if she actually won. But her mother was adorable. I didn't think Tyra looked bad. She looked like she put on a bit of weight, which looked good on her actually. Her wig looked a little aging. In fact I think her whole look was kinda like she was going for a First Lady Realness thing.

I am re-watching Brooklyn 99 from the first season and I just have to say Captain Holt is the best! I love all the flashbacks that pepper the series when he talks about being an out gay black detective when he was starting out (his geri curl and mustache really sell it). I cracked up at the totally unpronounceable acronym for the gay black police officers support group he founded (and still runs for president of each year). And I finally I love his relationship with his husband Kevin. They are so restrained and decorous, and yet still oddly sexy. Andre Braugher is such a genius in this role.

Very, very pleased by the outcome. Bob deserved it. It looked like Rumer Williis was #TeamBob. I will say, though. that Naomi had the best segment. Her family was adorable (I love how Ru called them the Von Trapp Singers) and they got Queen -mother-fucking Cersei to give her a shout out. Cersei that walk, indeed. Violet shut it down, holy cow! I think she kinda upstaged Ru. Also Chi Chi looked fierce! So glad she's doing well. And I knew Cynthia would get Miss Congeniality. Also well deserved. She is so sweet and her impression of Acid Betty was hysterical.

Yup. I thought they screwed it up the minute they announced she was gonna be a cop. Since it was CBS you knew it was just gonna be another cop/police procedural, nothing essentially Nancy about it. When they first announced they were basing something off Nancy Drew and making her older, I thought it would be closer to the Phryne Fisher stuff.. an older rich socialite who solves crimes. Also with a cool car. Nancy had a cool blue roadster.

Ha! Y'all are cracking me up with the Jo speculations. But I can't lie, this would not surprise me one bit. I am not a big Jo fan, so I am kinda happy she and Alex are kaputzo. To be fair, their romance withered under writer neglect so I really couldn't bring myself to care. Or maybe this will all be miraculously fixed next week? it's Grey's so it's possible. I liked this episode, weirdly, even though everybody *cough*Meridith*cough* was cranky. But there were some admittedly funny moments among the crankiness. My favorite was Penny hugging Meredith who looked like she wanted to ward her off with a bleach spray. LOL. Also, who just has a box of bacon randomly sitting around? I hope that whatever they were doing with Maggie and Riggs was just them bonding as buds and not some precursor to some weird love triangle because no one is here for that. I mean I could see some real chemistry there, but since he is now boinking Meredith, let's not go there. I like Stephanie but I have to admit she was really, really out of line and rather annoying. Overall thinking back over the Kyle/Steph storyline it had potential but in the end it fell ultimately flat. All I am left with is a feeling of, why was it even there? She knew the guy for like ten minutes. It is hard to get in your feels for a relationship that barely even started. It is such an odd story and on a meta level feels like Shonda throwing Steph a bone because they remembered she had no love life for two years. I can't fault the actors, though, they gave it the old college try. Whatever feels the story did wring from me was because they struggled mightily under the weight of a thankless plot. I didn't like how the show developed Penny, but Callie really did her dirty. Not Cool, Callie, Not cool.

Meh. All they've done is delayed cancellation for a few more months. Still dead to me.

In the words of the fabulous Pam Poovey "Holey Shit snacks!" Also in the words of the not-so-fabulous Nelson Muntz "Ha-Ha" ABC is announcing a bunch of cancellations right now.

Have you seen Happy Endings? Adam Pally played a bro-dude gay guy in that show. His best friend Brad, played by Damon Wayans, was a total metrosexual ("Daddy likes a deep tuck!") who was sometimes coded as more stereotypical gay even though he was hetero. Anyhoo, I am totally loving this show and am really liking how ABC is curating its comedy line-up to be show all different types of families (ethnicity/religion etc.) but funnily enough so many of the themes in the various shows episodes could literally be swapped out because they are universal. Kenny is a really great emotional center, but I am really enjoying how they are developing the personalities of all the kids and even Eileen. Pat is the one who I think they are lagging on. I love Jay R. Ferguson and have since he was on Mad Men so I want them to give him something to sink his teeth into.