I was so excited last week to find that Six Degrees wasn’t cancelled after all. I hadn’t really been following this show in terms of it’s life or death status… I just assumed since it was a serious and quiet kind of drama with really good actors, that I enjoyed, but hadn’t been on for months, that it was toast!

Nice to see it’s still bread.

I am a sucker for the interconnected storyline format and this one does it well. Introducing lots of interesting characters and then slowly showing connections developing between them, often connections the characters have no idea are there.

In it’s return last week, a few of the connections were revealed to the characters… and one was resolved in a slightly cop-out way… but it was satisfying, and the more I think of it, I don’t know what else they could have done. (For those of you watching, I’m talking about the public defender/limo driver connection.) The photographer/widow storyline, however, was revealed to the characters in an interesting way and in resolving that storyline, they opened up an interesting love triangle… So, that has potential.

I mentioned great actors earlier and two of my favorite actors to watch are in this series, Campbell Scott and Hope Davies. Campbell Scott is the progeny of George C. Scott and the great late Canadian actress Colleen Dewhurst (who everyone in my country remembers seeing as Marilla in the Anne of Green Gables TV movie in the 70’s. Or was that the 80’s? I just looked it up. It was 1985. My memory is going.)

Hope Davies… I just think she’s cool. In the early 90’s I was in New York on business and went to the half price ticket booth in Times Square at lunch to see what I could get for that night. One of the available plays was Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet). It was playing off-off (probably a few more offs) Broadway with some unknown actors. I’d heard of the play. I knew the playwright was a Canadian. Anyway. I went to see it and was blown away. I thought it was the most clever, funniest play I’d ever seen.

About 4-5 years ago, the play was being done here in Toronto with the playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald (also a novelist and actor) in the lead. I jumped at the chance to see the play again… And was really let down. It just didn’t click for me in the same way. Felt flat.

So what’s the point of this rambling departure? And just how many degrees of separation is it from Hope Davies?

Well, after my disappointment I looked through my old theatre programs (I save stuff like that) and the reason it had been so amazing in NY became evident. The lead was Hope Davies and one of the male leads was Liev Schrieber. Talk about seeing two interesting actors before they were famous.

Anyway, always been a fan of hers. She always makes cool choices. If you’ve never seen The Secret Lives of Dentists, you can rent it and see her and Campbell Scott together in a film. Very strange and interesting movie… Dennis Leary’s in it too…

So, I’ve gone totally off topic… But was really glad to see Six Degrees on TV again. (And Molly… I think I saw an ad that Friday Night Lights is back, too.

Is anyone else watching Six Degrees? Am I the show’s only fan?

Okay.

So the latest cheesy reality show snagged me tonight. (Because I could care less about American football. Don’t even know who was playing and wasn’t that excited to see Prince in the half-time show.)

In this new show, six potential Danny’s and six potential Sandy’s are competing for the roles in a new Broadway production of Grease.

The producers have given “cute” names to each of the contestants to help we, the viewers, remember them, and my least favourite of the bunch has been dubbed “Hot Danny”.

He’s slick, I’ll give him that, but he’s arrogantly overconfident about his chances of winning. Hot? (Okay, in the shirtless shot they showed of him in his previous career as a model he does have great abs…) But his hair!!! Yuck. And his dance moves and the way he looks at the camera make me think Gay-Bar-Go-Go-Dancer Danny, not Hot Danny. (Actually, his hair doesn’t look as bad in this photo as it does on stage. It totally overwhelms him. He’s got this tiny face and Texas-Beauty-Queen hair.

Okay, this post is super mean. But am I wrong? Anyone else watch?

Okay, so I waxed poetic (I wish) on the first season of Grey’s Anatomy on the DWT talk blog… but suddenly want to add something more current on the topic.

I’ve read criticisms on other blogs etc. of Izzie’s character. “How can we sympathize with a character who’s beautiful, smart and then inherits 8 million dollars from a man she was barely engaged to?”

I beg to differ….

Is someone immune from pain because she’s pretty? Because she has money?

I find her character one of the most interesting ones on that show. (Okay, Christine is hands down the most interesting character, but I also like Izzie… and George….)
Izzie’s total white trash. Grew up poor. But because she was smart and pretty, (Yes, I concede it took both, but that, in itself, is interesting) she became a doctor.

Then she falls in love with a dying man. Dying man dies and turns out to have money he bequeaths to her.

Some say this makes things easy for Izzie. I think it adds to her difficulties/complexities. She doesn’t NEED the money. She’s conflicted by having it. She’s full of guilt and sadness and feelings of not being worthy and getting by on her looks….

I LOVE this character.

Deeply complex.

I’m done….

A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting my aunt, who is not a fan of Lost. I made her watch it anyway. When I asked why she didn’t like it, her major complaints were things like: why hasn’t Hurley lost more weight. I admit I’ve wondered the same thing, on occasion, but they explained that partially with the food from the hatch, and I was surprised during one of the early episodes this season to find out how few days they’ve actually been on the island. (42? Can’t remember, but it was fewer than I thought.) And really, worrying about those kind of details misses the point and the fun of Lost in my opinion.

Still…watching it tonight I had to wonder… How does Kate keep her armpits so hairfree? Her eyebrows so nicely plucked?

Hmmmm…..

Toby got more talented when he darkened his hair. Does that make me prejudiced? Seriously, I’ve never been a big fan of his, in spite of recognizing he has talent. Kind of like Patrice. Something was missing even if I couldn’t put my finger on it.

But when he darkened his hair for tonight’s show, picture above is pre-darkened, I decided what had been missing was edge. His too blonde hair made him look too surfer boy pretty to front a heavy metal band in my opinion.

One contestant early on, can’t remember which one, was kicked off largely because he made the fatal mistake of singing a Duran Duran song. Sorry, but Toby has always looked and sounded more Duran Duran than Supernova to me. But tonight, he rocked.

Maybe the cover does matter as much as the book?

That said, I’m back to rooting for Lukas or Storm. Dilana has lost me. She started the show all self-deprecating and “I don’t know what I’m doing here”. Then she got all this attention and turned into an overconfident monster. And now she’s just getting boring and I can’t help but think the bad things happening to her are karma. Also, it appears song writing may be her kryptonite.

Exciting. I’m such a sucker for that show.

Okay, I totally missed this series when it was on TV. I’m not a huge sci fi person and don’t even remember hearing about it. But last year, my good friend Sinead talked me into seeing the movie SERENITY and I was blown away. Now I’m watching the DVD of the FIREFLY series and if you’ve never seen it, you should.

I mean a western set in space—what’s not to love? Such a cool mix of futuristic elements and the American west of the 1800’s. Makes sense, too… I mean, why wouldn’t the new frontiers go a little wild west when they start to be colonized?

Joss Whedon is a great writer. The characters are all unique and the more episodes I watch, the more questions he sets up so you can’t wait to see the next episode to find out what happens.

Check it out!