Dreamways

In her review of TV shows on the Lifetime channel (“Women’s Work: Sunday Night on Lifetime,” The New Yorker, 13 Aug 07), Nancy Franklin writes: "I wearily note, for the record, that both of the other Sunday-night series on Lifetime begin with dream sequences in which the lead characters – played by Lili Taylor in "State of Mind“ and Marisa Coughlan in "Side Order of Life“ – are humiliated in public.

 read more »

This is a gay,  gothic, TV potboiler. A fellow in the 1800's is engaged to be married to, it turns out, a vampire-ette. When just before the wedding she catches him in the act of being fucked by the valet, she is consumed by jealousy and condemns him to eternal dungeondom. The only thing that will liberate him is the kiss of a beautiful young man. Fast forward to now, with the house of the basement an inn owned and run by gays. Of course, a young blond beauty boy finds chained vampire and kisses him. Waves of revenge then course throughout all the characters' lives.

 read more »

Season 2, disc 5 of this TV show.  Bree abandons her son somewhere out in the country. “I’m not strong enough to be able to deal with you,” she tells him. (Which is actually an amazing thing for Ms Kontrol to ever admit.) “Good, I win,” he says, timidly. “I was sure that you would abandon me, and now you’ve proved right.”

 read more »

The rococo adventures in TV suburbia continue.  Bree has developed a drinking problem which she denies. Her power struggle with her gay son is poignant, she having no idea that her comment condemning him to hell for his sexuality deeply injured him, to the point of rage and revenge. In his blind determination to exact justice, his ruthlessness, he is very much her son. With her drinking, Bree has, for the first time I believe, started lying.

Season 2 continues, disc 2.  Suburban TV life at its most overblown. Bree continues to fascinate me. For the first time, we see her cry, but all in all she is strongly under control. Gabrielle, too, finally cries a tiny bit, about her miscarriage. Susan is the one who cries a lot, but she knows herself so little that she is a walking emotional mine field who causes blow-ups right and left.

Season 1, disc 6 contains this TV show's first season‘s last episodes. The series has become more mindful of the deep sorrow underlying the desperation of the fine and seemingly upstanding residents of Wisteria Lane. There is humor in the various characters‘ efforts to try and control their circumstance, the very efforts giving birth to their pain. Each is reminded that there is very little of significance that they can control, although they don’t believe this to be true.

Network TV’s response to HBO’s wildly successful soap operas, such as The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Deadwood. Four intelligent and previously successful-in-the-outside-world women are trapped in married lives in an affluent McSuburb. Red-headed Bree is the epitome of Suburban Perfection and Control. Lynette cannot keep up with four small kids. Gabrielle is a former model who married for money and is having an affair with a high school boy. The fourth character, Susan, is a divorcee whose husband dumped her.

 read more »

(Season 1, disc 2). The stories and acting in this TV show get better. The show tackles some interesting Black world issues: gays and Black churches; AIDS; gangsta life. It is a delight to view an all-Black world. Fidelity is an issue in all of the characters‘ lives. The circle of their friendship is a container in which that the four main characters continually find guidance and comfort.

An all-Black, gay TV show!  Four main characters + a featured boyfriend. Pretty Noah (the actor played in Another Gay Movie) is falling in relationship with very good looking, heretofore straight, Wade. There is academician Chance who has just moved in with a fellow and his four year old daughter. There is the queeny AIDS worker negotiating sex issues with his partner of 7 years. Finally there is the sex-addicted clothing store owner.

 read more »

The HBO potboiler. A lavish costume drama. Quite entertaining. Julius Caesar is a fascinating character as shown in this series, a consummate politifcian. The soldier Vorenus, his constant struggles to act ethically in a corrupt world, are fascinating. His righteous anger that so easily becomes self-righteous, is terrifying.