New York Times media critic David Carr tweeted yesterday morning "is it just me, or does tv season seem oddly full of interesting new shows? has 500 channel univ. finally started to infill with quality?" And frequent commenter and total rockstar GayAsXmas (who y'all really should check out at Musings from the other end of the ballroom) blogged about how he's backlogged on Glee along with a whole raft of other American TV shows. I've been feeling similarly overwhelmed (I haven't even gotten to the House premiere yet, and given the news that Jennifer Morrison is leaving the show involuntarily, I'm consider sulking and not catching up as a form of protest. That resolve will last until Sunday, tops.). But after a totally exhausting week, I came home last night, sat down on the couch, and started catching up on things I've missed.
The verdicts? Modern Family was decent enough for me to sit through a half-hour family comedy, something I have never done before in my entire live as a television viewer. The combination of a gay couple, a heteronormative family with a father who wants desperately to be cool, and the father of one of the gay men and the wife in the other family, his Colombian bride, and her son, is reasonably appealing. And like seemingly every other new comedy out there, the writing is surprisingly sharp. I'm not going to lie: "I gave her my heart, and she gave me a picture of myself as an old-time sheriff" may actually beat out Say Anything's "I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen" as the best riff on that particular line. The wannabe-cool dad's declaration that "You're surprisingly strong, homes," directed at his daughter's first boyfriend, who is carrying him to the couch after he's thrown out his back is pretty apt, too.
Community stayed strong in its second week, too, taking on campus protest, spearheaded by a housewife who wants a chance to get radical. Danny Pudi's declaration that holding vigils "gets the ladies in the mood for social change, if you know what I mean" is sort of terrifyingly dead-on. And I do wish the demonstrations I participated in once upon a time had involved more homemade brownies. It's always nice to feel good after your former self gets recognizably tweaked. Also, any television show that includes the subtitled Spanish translation of a hip-hop verse that turns out to be "the goat's mustache is Cameron Diaz" is definitely staying on my must-watch list.
And because I am just such a girl, last night's Glee made me cry. Again. I really appreciate the show seems to be resolving its predictable conflicts quickly and moving on to more interesting challenges. Instead of teasing tension between Rachel and Finn all season, the show has wisely left it alone, leaving Rachel to figure out if she can be a decent person out of the spotlight, and giving Finn a pregnancy drama with a twist to deal with. Kurt's coming-out drama turned out to be anything but. Instead, the show's focusing on a host of more nuanced issues (not that it's unimportant that coming out be represented, but I do think it's useful to upset the notion that it's necessarily agony): the kids' desire to get out of their hometown for economic, social, and cultural reasons; Terri's obsession with her pregnancy; ambition and how it plays into our lives at every age. (SPOILER ALERT) I also like that the teen pregnancy drama is playing out in a multidimensional way. Finn's breakdown with Will, his terror and tenderness about potential parenthood, and his desire to do something more with his life so he can transcend his economic constraints, were beautifully done. But what killed me was Puck's desire to become a father, to prove he can be responsible. American popular culture generally seems highly uncomfortable with the fact that some teenagers want to become parents, no matter how ready they are to actually parent or provide for a child. (SPOILER ALERT OVER). When Glee debuted, there's zero way I would have expected that four episodes in, a mohawked Ohio football player with an outdoor pool-cleaning business and a cougar fixation would be the character I'd end up most invested in. But being surprised is nice, a lot of the time.
As for Bones, I missed the middle of tonight's episode to take a call from a buddy in Shanghai. But I think the show is definitively back. I wonder--and I'll have more to write about this later--if the writers' strike didn't just throw people off, leaving a lot of shows to feel unbalanced last season. But I'm profoundly glad the show's back. I'm terrible at walking away from things, so I'm glad my Thursday evening TV rotation can stay enjoyable and intact.
Still to catch up with: Flash Forward, Eastwick (I love Rebecca Romijn), The Good Wife (I love Archie Panjabi), maybe The Vampire Diaries. And for you Dollhouse (or Joss Whedon more broadly) fans, stay tuned for a VERY special treat later this morning.