The 10 best things on television this year, that I can recall.

10. Liam. - Sigh. Modern day Dylan McKay, complete with boat building skills and poor-little-rich-boy problems? I'll take it. When is 90210 coming back on again?!!

It's cool everybody, he's 26!

9. The knowledge that if you're dancing to House Music, it isn't cheating. -Now it might seem crazy for me to find something that could be labeled "best" in the "so awful you can only watch silently with your mouth agape" Jersey Shore, but it was pretty damn amazing watching Snooki explain to J-Woww's (Yes those are their names. Feel free to call her Snickers though, everybody does.) boyfriend that since J-Woww was dancing to House Music and not R&B, the fact that she was rubbing herself all over Pauly D. was actually some kind of dance "battling" and not cheating. Or even flirting! The best part? He totally accepted it as true and correct. Thank you Snooki, you have added so much to my life.


8. Dexter's Season 4 Finale "The Getaway"
-In a season that seemed determined to at least rearrange the show's premise a bit, making Dexter less of a monster a more of a family man, the season finale not only gave us hope that Dexter might become something better, it also showed us the price he pays for giving into his "dark passenger". After a beautiful scene with his sister (Jennifer Carpenter) that helps him realize that he actually CAN connect with other people, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) goes home to find that his wife Rita, murdered by the man he just killed. "The Getaway" gave us everything we could ask for in a season finale: great work by the cast, excitement, suspense, tender moments and a shocking twist.

7. Torchwood: Children of Earth America, this is how you do great sci-fi. This 10 hour miniseries left me speechless, a little depressed and hungry for more. After a couple of fun but uneven seasons, creator Russell T. Davies fearlessly made sure that Torchwood would not be remembered as a some goofy Doctor Who spin-off, but as a gut-wrenching, unforgettable series of it's own.


6. JAMES FRANCO ON GENERAL HOSPITAL. - Confession time: I watch soap operas. When I got Soapnet on my cable system, I physically jumped for joy. Sometimes they get so terrible, I can't even watch them for months at a time. But sometimes, amazing things happen on them, and this was one of those times.I don't know how this happened, if it was performance art, a practical joke or a lost bet, but whatever it was, it was awesome.



5. Lost, Season 5 -Time travel? Love triangles? Nuclear bomb detonation? Sign me up. This season Lost got back to what it does best, showing us the humanity (and inhumanity) of these characters while putting them through twisty, turny suspenseful hell. (The actual best thing I saw on TV this year? Kate's hair in this episode.)

4. Jim and Pam's Wedding, The Office -If The Office's "Niagara Falls" didn't bring a tear to your eye, you are not human, man. You must be nothing more than an incredibly realistic looking human style robot or something. I mean Kevin was wearing tissue boxes as shoes! It was great.

3.Chuck, Season 2
-If a smart, adorable show about a nerd whose brain accidentally becomes the CIA's most important super computer doesn't sound like your cup of tea, get a new cup. Chuck has the most like-able cast on television, great music, an only deepening mythology, more laughs per hour than most comedies and more real, raw moments per hour than most dramas. Season 3 is coming in January, and if you're smart, which I think you are, you'll be watching.




2. Modern Family
-Ask anyone who knows me, I cannot say enough good things about this show. It is hilarious, has an amazing cast, including some incredibly gifted child actors, and kinda warms your heart sometimes too! Also, a giant clown named Fizbo threatening to kick a jerk's ass if he doesn't apologize to his boyfriend. Welcome to awesometown people.


1. Mad Men, Season 3 Finale, "Shut the Door, Have a Seat" -Part fun and jaunty caper flick, part heart wrenching family drama, there was nothing better this year than the season ender of this great show. As usual, creator Matthew Weiner made sure that everything, from the cast to the clothes, was perfect. This was Don Draper's hour, and Jon Hamm did beautiful work as always. The look of pride and triumph that he has as he surveys that tiny Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce office just made the episode for me. He is ready to value the people he works with, and he is ready to build something that is his. You can tell from the look in his eyes that he can't wait to see how it all turns out, and I can't either.

Melrose Place blew my mind this week!

Well, I didn't have any Melrose Place related dreams this week, but that doesn't mean that a ton of stuff didn't happen! We found out so many things! It was amazing! Most of them made sense even!

-Ella loves Jonah because "He gets me." And she can be herself around him. They are cute. I'm just saying.

-Riley is "scared" and "not ready" to get married.

-Jonah is pissed.

-Ella has super pretty hair.

-The CW's website had like 10 versions of the same two pictures from this episode, and not one of them features Ella's pretty hair.

-Lauren's still whoring.

-Lauren and David are still cute together. (I wonder if that first thing about Lauren will somehow affect this second thing?!)

-Amanda is looking for not something with 'sentimental value', but for a 19 million dollar painting that she believes Syd stole from her.

-Amanda and Michael were sleeping together at some point in the recent past.

--Jonah's movie dreams might be coming true.

-Riley is not ready for any inappropriate post-engagement-break-up sex. (Sorry Auggie!)

-Jonah is. (Good for you Ella!)

-Sydney and Violet actually made up the night Sydney died (Sydney did so much that night!) and were going to be a part of eachother's lives.

-When Vanessa called her a whore, Sydney actually used the line "Takes one to know one" on her. These two should meet Lauren!

-But the most important thing we learned tonight?! Scary-face Brooke Burns/Micheal's wife Vanessa killed Sydney! And not just because Syd was sleeping with her husband, but because Sydney knew that David is Noah's father! WHAT?! Yeah, I did not see that coming. But now I know why they cast a blonde actor as Noah.

-Violet went all crazy and after an intense girl on girl pool fight, actually drowned Vanessa! I hope Noah was sleeping or watching TV or something. That kid is going to need some serious therapy.

-David had a really bad night. He made some bad decisions (letting Violet watch his son/brother, telling her Vanessa killed her mother), but I don't think he could have imagined when he woke up that morning that his girlfriend was going to OD on some kind of made-up drug that a john gave her while she was whoring, and that his neighbor would kill is stepmother/former lover who killed his father's mistress/his former girlfriend. No one can really.

-Amanda saw the whole thing, and then totally covered for Violet, hoping, I guess that she knows where this 19 million dollar painting is. Okay, sure, maybe she does. Still, maybe yell or something when you see someone drowning a lady in your pool.

-No one is ever going to swim in that pool again. Two deaths officially makes it cursed.

-They used such a scary-faced actress for a reason! Because she was a murderer! A lot of casting decisions are coming into focus for me here.

-Micheal's innocent and was just trying to protect his scary-faced wife, who he seems to totally hate. I guess for the sake of the kid or something. I'm just glad we're not losing Michael Mancini!

Melrose Place will be back 'soon' they say! With new cast members! And more fun stuff! I'm ready for it.

What does 'Coming Soon' mean?! Need more 90210 now!

Looking through my notes about 90210 this week, there are no fewer than 7 sad faces! That's a lot of sad faces! It was a sad episode, with lots of drama, miscommunication and general angst. A lot of stuff went down. It was actually a pretty awesome show this week!

I have to say that even thought I kind of felt bad for Annie here, I did not actually make a sad face next to her name (sad faces next to: Teddy, Ivy, Ade, Teddy again, Silver + Dixon, Ivy again.) However, even though I pretty much hate Annie, there was a lot I liked about the whole Annie/Jasper take-down story such as:

-Naomi sincerely apologizing to Annie. That was nice. Even though Annie is pretty terrible, she didn't deserve what Naomi did. (She did kill that bum so...maybe she did?)

-Naomi going all mama bear on Annie when she found out that Jasper was a drug dealer.

-Liam apologizing to Annie, which he really should have, because he did let everyone believe they slept together, which is not cool.

-The whole original gang (minus the more likeable new cast members) got together to talk to Annie! It kind of made me miss Ethan, but what can you do?

-Ade stepping up and admitting that she bought drugs from Jasper, which made Annie believe them AND brought her and Navid a little closer together. (Man, I really miss my favorite teenage almost-marrieds. Adrianna and Navid 4eva!)

-Annie actually believing them! Finally!

-And of course, the kicker. JASPER KNOWS ANNIE RAN OVER HIS UNCLE. What?! How one earth could he know, and why would he date someone who killed his uncle? Oh man this guy is more twisted than we knew. I am sure this will kick off a story of poor Annie being forced to stay with him or something, before it is revealed that she really hit a black bear or something. Or a minotaur.

(She's actually an expert life ruiner Navid, give her a crack at Jasper.

)

But Annie isn't the only one to suffer heartbreak at the incredibly well advertised (Ballerinas in the halls?! What?!) "Winter Wonderland" dance. Poor Teddy and Silver both suffer the heartbreak of miscommunication. Aided by Dixon, coming back to remind us that even though everyone is being pretty nice on this episode (excluding villain Jasper) that he is still the biggest jerk on the show. When he didn't tell Silver that the blonde was Teddy's sister, I actually yelled "Ugh, what a jerk!" to no one in particular. Why does Dixon suck so much? Teddy and Silver are my new Navid and Adrianna, as in I care a weird amount about the progression of their relationship. Way more than I should. Damn you Dixon!!

Speaking of Dixon, I actually really liked the scenes with him and Deb where they talked about his adoption and his trouble feeling like he belonged in the family. It is pretty cool that they touched a little bit on the whole Black kid in a white family thing. I am not so sure I am too excited about the "finding my birth mom" thing, mostly because they did that last season, it was pretty sweet and it made me stop hating Annie for five minutes. I don't think this can happen again.

Well I knew this day would come. And even I have to admit, the Liam/Naomi reunion was super sweet. He even showed her what was under his tarp, (heh) and it wasn't a Jen killing machine or an Annie killing machine! It was a boat! He's so sensitive! Honestly, even though I really like Ivy and I think that Liam and she are super cute together, you got me CW, Naomi and Liam are pretty great too. Liam I guess, is just awesome. And hot. Anyway, if there had been a pic of Naomi and Liam instead of Ivy and Liam on the CW website I would have put it up. That is how much I am ready to buy this couple. They really stretched out their separation pretty well, and gave them a totally nice reunion. Facilitated by Ivy! Love that girl.

So let's review, because you might need to refer back to this 'soon' (whenever that is!) when 90210 returns!

-Annie knows Jasper is a drug dealer.

-Jasper knows Annie is a bum killer.

-Adrianna is clean and getting back into everyone's good graces.

-Silver and Teddy like each other, but Silver thinks Teddy is a player and Dixon decided to prey on that and kiss her. Cause he's a jerk.

-Teddy is sweet.

-Dixon is jerk.

-Naomi and Liam are back together.

-Liam is making a boat, not a killing machine.

-Liam is hot.

-Ivy is heartbroken. Or at least sad.

-Navid is still taking the hard line when it comes to forgiving Ade, but he's softening a little. Maybe.

-Ryan Matthews is drinking at work, I guess because Jen is a horrible person. Or because he is an idiot.

-West Beverly High School spends an inordinate amount of money on their dances.

-I love snow cones. Great refreshment idea Dance Committee!

See you 'soon'!

Heroes-The last two episodes until 2010!

At this point, it is pretty rare for me to be able to understand any character's motivations at all. I spend most of my Heroes watching time cringing and spouting out better solutions to these people's problems, or trying to explain their stupidity away, saying things like "Well I guess I can understand where Peter is coming from, I mean he just found out his brother is dead and all..." Also, I can never bring myself to watch it on time, obviously.

Let's just start with "Thanksgiving":

-Everyone on this show needs an interior decorator. Do all the Heroes have to live in the most drab, depressing places imaginable?

-Oooh it's that blonde woman who likes Bennet again! If this show needs anything, it's definitely MORE characters.

-Awkward Thanksgivings all around. Sandra brings her boyfriend. H.R.G stalks the blonde; invites her to the worst Thanksgiving ever. Claire threatens to quit school. Over at the Petrelli's, Angela lies, threatens and generally stomps around like a child before admitting that Nathan is both dead and Sylar, then Sylar eats all the pie. Seriously.

-At the Carny Thanksgiving, Hiro time travels to when Samuel killed Joseph, showing Lydia, instead of time traveling to when Samuel took Charlie and saving her. Okay. Sure. Not exactly what I would do in that situation, but really, who am I to judge?

-Claire stole the compass and then she and Gretchen went on a ROAD TRIP! You are an idiot Claire.

"The Fifth Stage" marked the last episode of Adrian Pasdar (one of the few actors on this show to combine being hot with being a good actor) as Nathan Petrelli. He and Peter had a scene which was supposed to be gut wrenching but just seemed completely ridiculous because of what had come before. (Namely, Peter running around trying to make Sylar become his dead brother, taking away all his powers and then not killing him. I know we want to keep Zach Quinto on the show, but man, the reasons for not killing Sylar are getting ridic.) Then he fell off a building for what seemed like ever,became Sylar and walked away. So, good plan Peter. Real good plan.

Meanwhile, Nathan's bio-daughter, who has no idea that he's dead and seems completely unconcerned with her bio-family at this point anyway, was conned and joined the Carnival with Samuel. I don't think it could have been more clear that Claire was being snowed, and I can only hope Gretchen's decision to weirdly accept Claire's terrible choice just means she is driving straight to H.R.G.'s and getting his help.

H.R.G. and that blonde woman worked on finding Claire and on their own relationship issues. I like H.R.G. being with someone who actually likes him and is nice to him. I am sure the writers are working on that as we speak, and it will be all ruined in January.

The closing montage reminded me of that lame Emma woman, and let me know that apparenly Hiro, Ando and Mohinder are running around in a jungle or something. Even though last we saw Hiro he was trying to save Charlie, the last we saw Ando he was about to marry Hiro's sister and the last we saw of Mohinder he was in a straitjacket in a padded room, I'm not even wondering why or how. I just don't care.

Heroes will return in January. At least I think it will.

-

90210-The Destruction of Jen!

So, I missed the last episode and half of 90210 before this one, and there were a few important plot points there including:

Navid's okay!!

-Annie's parents don't want her to see Jasper.

-Adrianna is a mess.

-Ivy and Liam are "casual"

-Silver and Kelly's mom died.

-Jasper pushed Navid down the stairs for telling Dixon he's a drug dealer!!!!

So we're starting there, with the whole, yay! Navid is okay! And of course he has memory loss so he doesn't know how he ended up at the bottom of the stair. I am willing to bet he also doesn't know why he was wearing those weird male jazz shoes either.

He is sort of a drama queen about the whole thing, and he shoots down Adrianna TWICE, once when she actually tries to explain to him why she kissed Teddy. (basically, she was engaging in self-sabotage.) Navid is harsh man. But he has had a tough couple of months, so I'm willing to give him a break.

I don't know where Kelly is during this whole thing, but Naomi and Silver have such good friend chemistry! I loved Naomi trying to be goofy and make Silver feel a little better. It was sweet. Still, Kelly should probably be there for her sister, since her mom just died and everything.

In other Silver news: her and Teddy kissed! They are so totally going to be in love and all that stuff. Adrianna is going to be really mad if Teddy breaks his "no relationship code" for Silver! Also, Silver and Dixon made up, and Dixon behaved generally decently in this episode, though it is still mind boggling that all these people had no problem being friends with Liam even though they believed he slept with Annie but all of them pretty much hated Annie for the same thing. If Annie weren't so awful I would have to charge a little misogyny, but Annie is terrible so maybe people were just looking for an excuse to be mean to her or something.

Speaking of Liam: Here is a dreamy picture of him:

Oh. So what about the absolute super BEST part of the episode?!! The greatest part? All of our favorite characters (plus Dixon) banded together to TAKE JEN DOWN. I was a little disappointed that since were getting all of these Ocean's 11 references that we didn't get to see a little more of the planning, but it was still a sweet payoff in the end. Not only did Naomi find out about Jen sleeping with Liam just to get back at her, Ryan Matthews, idiot of the year, finally wised up and realized that Jen was a teenager-schtupping, sister-money-stealing, gold-digging biatch! It was a beautiful sight.

I really shouldn't be taking this much joy from the take-down of a fictional character, but man, I really hate Jen. I do feel very bad for Naomi, pretty much finding out that she has no one in her family that she can count on, but I guess that is still better than being scammed by her awful sister. I even felt kinda bad when Ivy kissed Liam in front of her, even though I am an Ivy + Liam 4eva kind of girl. I mean she called Annie right away to apologize, which you have to admit, is pretty stand up. I hope they don't completely destroy Ivy's character or any potential Ivy and Liam have just to get him and Naomi back together though.

Other thoughts:

-Silver looked like a waiter in her outfit. (I was going to change that to 'waitress, and then I thought, no, it's definitely 'waiter.')

-I love the HUGE plate of food Naomi took at the horse race, and how she plopped a giant lobster on top.

-Best line, Ivy to Teddy, re: her and Liam "Don't Tweet about it, pretty boy."

-Worst line, Jasper to Annie re: her parents hating him "It sends me into a dark place."

-I love that Silver and Naomi were listening to Hall and Oates.

-I totally called that Teddy wouldn't be able to go to Jackie's funeral because it reminded him of his own mom's.

-Jackie Taylor's funeral was offscreen?!!

-Another awesome music choice, PJ Harvey for Adrianna's "wake up and find out everything has gone to hell while you were in a drug induced haze" scene.

-Teddy, Dixon, Ivy and the waiter/actor really should have celebrated their victory over Jen in another location, away from Naomi, whose entire world had just been busted open. AND she didn't really have a secret admirer!

-Dixon covered for Annie! I hate these two slightly less when they don't hate each other.

-NAVID REMEMBERS WHO THREW HIM DOWN THE STAIRS! Next take-down? Jasper perhaps?

Next week:

Ooh! A dance!

I dreamed a dream of Melrose Place.

Last night I dreamed that visiting L.A. from Western Mass, I met David and he totally became my boyfriend (with apologies to my real boyfriend, who would never wear that horrible weird vest thing over a t-shirt that David is rocking in the above photo), but we were having some issues because I wanted to do some "touristy" things around L.A. but he was stuck dealing with his crazy roommates (Lauren and also Serena from Gossip Girl). THEN people were protesting outside the window, and it turned out they were people from Western Mass protesting about how much L.A. sucks and how WMASS is so much better. So David went down there and they ended up knocking him over and sort of beating him up by rolling all over him weirdly. It was strange, but I think it showed me one thing, Melrose Place must be getting better, because my subconscious is still totally interested!

So what happened on the actual show you might ask? Well:

David and Lauren (Still no nooky there, because of her whoring) worked together to get Michael arrested for Sydney's murder. It certainly looks like he's the culprit at this point, but I am sure there could be a TWIST!! I am liking David and Lauren together by the way. Maybe he, of all people, can totally accept her hooker ways and they can make a real go of it!

Ella got Jonah a job as an IT guy at WPK, then promptly used him for her own means. But that backfired when he discovered that she hadn't fought for him to get the music video credit in some episode I didn't watch, and so he fired her as his agent, manager AND friend. Harsh dude.

Riley's on Jonah's list as well (as usual) because she stuck her nose in where it didn't belong and consequently a psycho dude broke Jonah's very expensive camera.

Riley really did not explain herself very well in this situation though. Instead of saying "I kind of got between Violet and her brother" she should have said "This crazy guy forced his way into our apartment and smashed your stuff!" Both are true, and that second one is sure to keep your fiance from being mad at you.

"What did Riley stick her nose into anyway?" You might be asking. Well, let me just tell you this, it is pretty epic. Get ready. Are you ready? Okay... Violet has a BROTHER/LOVER. Yup. That's right. She has an adopted brother who is also her lover. Eww. Also, he's a meth-head. This dude is going to be so pissed when he finds out about her Auggie obsession.

This Violet development also shows us that pretty much everything she has said so far to everyone has been true. (From Oregon, stole $ to run away from a messed up upbringing, was looking for her birth-mother for years.) So that is kind of an interesting development. The brother/lover did seem to mention that becoming lovers instead of siblings was her idea, but he also seemed crazy, so it is hard to take him at his word.


Amanda is on a search for some object that she gave Sydney that is very important to her. So important in fact, that even though she is a multimillionaire she is going to live in the apartment complex she lived in 10 years ago to intimidate it's residents into giving her information on said precious object. Poor Ella. No one wants to live that close to their crazy, evil boss.

Best line of the night: Michael, re: Amanda and Sydney becoming friends again "Did you see each other at a support group for women who faked their own deaths?"

Worst part of the episode (for those afraid of Brooke Burns only): Seeing Michael trying to get it on with his freaky-faced wife.

Next week:
WHOA! Jonah and Ella hooking up?! Jonah and Riley breaking up?! How did I suddenly become so interested in Jonah?!!!