Watch This NOW: Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is the creation of The UK Office's annoying IT guy Matthew Holness and The IT Crowd's socially retarded IT guy Richard Ayoade. It aired in the UK's Channel 4 in 2004 and thanks to the magic of the internet, it can be viewed on youtube. Hilarious is an understatement. Also check out their related 2006 series Man to Man with Dean Learner.

This is the second episode, "Hell Hath Fury," and it perfectly captures the gleeful misogyny of the characters. As a silly woman, it's the kind of straight talk I can appreciate.

Color me surprised

Instant Star must have sucked away my good will when it came to the folks over at The N 'cause I didn't have high hopes for The Best Years. Then I heard Lauren Collins of Degrassi would play a recurring character and I figured I'd give it a chance. LC doesn't appear in the pilot, but it's actually quite good.

The story revolves around an orphan who's been in fostercare since her parents' death ten years ago. Now she's moving on up from a foster home in Southie to a Harvard-like university where her classmates include a status-conscious roomie, a nerdy Asian chick, a basketball player with Wallace Fennel syndrome (short, but allegedy awesome) and the star of an overwrought teen drama that bears more than a passing resemblence to Degrassi (her character's name was Snaps Ortega).

The characters are well-drawn and more three dimensional than a lot of teen shows (Hidden Palms, I'm talking to you), the plot took dark turns I certainly didn't see coming, and it makes a nice companion to the summer episodes of Degrassi. That said, Samantha looked a little wobbly on her moral high horse towards the end of the episode, but being a little bit of an asshole is kind of what college is all about.

The pilot episode is currently available in The N's online media player, The Click, at the-n.com

Yes, it's nuts

I saw Scream in the theater three times. Keep in mind that I was not yet 17 and didn't have hip parents who would buy me tickets, so I had to sneak into the theater to see Scream three times. And then I bought the VHS and I watched it a lot. Like A LOT a lot. But that was 10 years ago and my crush on ol' Skeet Ulrich had faded. I remember thinking that the previews for Jericho looked interesting, but I never got around to watching it. Like Heroes, it seemed too complicated to just pick up mid-season.

Then I heard about all those Jericho fans sending nuts to CBS to save their beloved show from cancellation and I thought, "That's the kind of crazy I can get behind." So I watched a few episodes online. They were not stellar, folks. They were kind of stilted and clichéd with compelling little bursts of interesting. I'd heard that the second half of the season was when we got to the good stuff, so I hung on that long, debating with myself about whether or not Eric would be cute without the beard.

I'm currently watching the second part of the season and it's clinging to my brain like Battlestar. It's not brilliant like that other show about prodigal sons and the gruff fathers who love them, but it taps into the same drama about life after the end of the world. In "Black Jack" Jake ventures with his dad, Heather and Dale outside of Jericho to a trading post, where we see exactly how far civilization has fallen. It's like the Old West, and the unpredictable danger of former neighbors is chilling.

The mystery with Hawkins and his former partner and their team and blah blah blah doesn't really do it for me. I'm more interested in the refugees, the highway robbers and the people learning to rise from the rubble of their former selves and stand tall in a savage new world.

CBS.com has all the episodes online. If you want to jump past the foibles of a show getting started and get straight to the awesome, just watch "Return to Jericho" to catch up before starting with "The Day Before."

"Dallas meets The OC," you said?

The above quote was on the DVD for Wildfire's first season and all I can say is "Yes please." Just when Instant Star was making me wonder if I had grown too big for the kiddie table, I'm back for seconds. I quickly burned through the first 13 episodes and purchased the second and third seasons on iTunes.

Sure, I've got lingering questions: How old are the kids? In the first season they seem to be about to begin their senior year of high school, but we've never seen them darken the door of an educational facility and by season three they're drinking legally (?) in bars and moving in with stuffy British girlfriends. Also, how much time has passed? Has each season been a year or are we entering Lost/Grey's Anatomy/One Tree Hill territory, in which time is malleable and several seasons encompass a single year?

Questions aside, I love this show. The Junior/Kris/Matt love triangle is reminiscent of Logan/Veronica/Duncan, wherein no one’s rooting for the wooden nice guy, but he's still okay to have around. Lilly Kane herself pops up to play Junior's romantic foil for a stint in season two. Not shockingly, she's great. Other guest stars include Amy Jo Johnson of Felicity as a bitch on wheels jockey, that Aussie dude from the second season of One Tree Hill as a slick sports agent, Joe Lando from Higher Ground as a wayward father with a gambling problem and the thin London twin as a scary bookie with a gold-plated heart.

Against the high stakes backdrop of thoroughbred horse racing, former juvie inmate Kris Furillo and a failed racehorse named Wildfire struggle to overcome their sad lots in life and thrive in a world of beauty, privilege and familial loyalty. Genevieve Cortese stands out as the star of a near-perfect cast, but all the characters are well drawn and fallible. Bitchy, villainous Dani is startlingly three-dimensional and Matt’s gambling problem was dropped in early on and simmered to a dangerous boil over an entire season. You won’t find subtly like that on Instant Star…

Season one is out on DVD; season two is being uploaded weekly onto abcfamily.com; all three are on iTunes

Veronica Mars: Debasement Tapes

Paud Rudd! And a bunch of other people you love! Seriously, the gang's all here. Vinnie and Bronson and that radio chick and that bell hop and scary Danny Boyd. There's Vinnie being all sketchy (my theory on Vincent Van Lowe: still working for the Fitzpatricks and the whole save the day schtick was a ploy to get a dirty sheriff back in office). Max is being all cute and Sacks is just being Sacks.

One of the things I love about this show is the established universe in which it exists. That's part of why I found last week's "Oh, we eat at Babylon Gardens ALL the time and I totally know your daughter" bit annoying. Cause guess what, Veronica? I know a lot of people in Neptune and bitchy Amira is not one of them. She's nothing buy a fly-by-night plot device and there's nothing you can do to convince me otherwise.

But enough of all that ugliness. On to last night's episode, which will air in LA at 9 PM on Saturday. It's also available online at cwtv.com. Shoddy detective work aside (seriously, she didn't ask to see the bag before starting the investigation?), the writers were on their A game. It was snappy and funny with lovely bits of pathos (Desmond) and angst (Logan, who else?). And while I'm not sure if Veronica really likes Piz or just thinks she should, I love him. So much that I'll continue to watch that Grey's spin-off even if it's assy and they keep making self-referential elevator jokes. I can't help it, folks. I'm about two episodes away from getting "Stosh" tattooed on my ass.

With the end of the season in sight (two more weeks and three more episodes), I gotta tell you: I'm holding out hope for the FBI redux version. Previous skepticism be damned. Alias wasn't all that bad the first couple of times it got revamped and it's not like a fictional Leonardo Da Vinci factors into this whole FBI thing. Though if it does, I'll still watch. Word is that the network presentation of Veronica: FBI Agent went very well. That combined with a slot left open by the departing Gilmore Girls and I have my fingers firmly crossed. Random question time: is it me, or is that totally Veronica creator Rob Thomas as Desmond's late bandmate? I realize the pic's small, but peruse your Tivo and I think I'll be proven right. Or legally insane. One or the other.

Bad news/Good news

Bad news: I thought Drive was premiering NEXT week and I totally missed it. Good news: It can be watched online at http://www.myspace.com/driveonfox

Belated Aquaman Viewing

Um, Friday Night Lights' Adrianne Palicki as a murderous siren?

Veronica Mars' coked-out Dr. Griffith as a shifty fed?

That chick from Hang Time as little AC's totally dead mama?

Fox from Passions and Lem from the freaking Shield?!

Why didn't I watch this thing sooner?

Logan broke her heart, but Beaver killed her cat, assaulted her best friend and grew up to be a kiddie rapist

Now available on NBC.com is an episode of Medium entitled “The Boy Next Door.” It guest stars Jessy Schram (AKA Veronica Mars’ Hannah Griffith) as the high school incarnation of Patricia Arquette’s Allison. She’s haunted by dreams of a future case in which she is reunited with a friend from high school and eventually learns that he has raped and murdered a girl her daughter’s age.

The weird thing is, as her friend points out, HS Allison doesn’t have a pal named Steven. Enter Kyle Gallner (AKA Veronica Mars’ Cassidy “Beaver” Casablancas) as her new neighbor, Steven. Dun dun dun! He does a nice job vacillating between awkward charm and shiver-inducing creepiness as a guy just getting started on a long and winding road to being a sexual predator. And when Allison dreams inform her to pull away from Steven, he tries such classic wooing techniques as murdering her beloved cat and nearly raping her aforementioned BFF.

I’ve never watched Medium, but I can understand why my mom digs it. The ending was satisfying and fairly chilling as we saw young Allison embrace her psychic abilities and change the future for the better. I did think Future Steven was a bit of a knob for willingly giving up his DNA. Was he so desperate to save face in front of his old crush that he’d do something that stupid? Maybe.

Also, must Kyle Gallner always play the psycho? I know that after that Columbine-inspired Cold Case, the Jon-Benet-inspired episode of Bones and the Season 2 finale of Veronica that his reel must have some choice scary kid moments, but doesn’t anyone remember how cute he and Mac were? You know, before we found out he’d raped Veronica. And set up his dad for financial ruin. And murdered all those people…

Vada v. Lemon

Look who grew out of her awkward stage! It took me until the scene where Liz fired her rival for Jason Sudeikis' affection to realize that Other Liz is a very grown up Anna Chlumsky. Weird.

The stuff with Nathan Lane as Jack's estranged brother was fairly predictable, but funny. And it was nice to see more about Jack's oddball background. All in all, a uniformly excellent episode, which is pretty standard for 30 Rock. If you're not watching because of Grey's Anatomy, check it out online at NBC.com.

It Tastes Like Betrayal

Check out those Team Tiger Awesome boys on the Maury Show. With New York (as in "I Love New York" New York).For more vids that are darn tootin' gonna tickle your funny bone, head on over to www.teamtigerawesome.com

Black Donnellys pilot available online now

I've seriously watched the screener of this pilot six times. It's fantastic. The only thing that disappoints me about the final product is the changed music. Arcade Fire's Rebellion Lies has been replaced with something that makes Tommy's descent into crime far less haunting. It's a shame, but it's still a damn fine pilot.

Watch it on Yahoo now.
http://tv.yahoo.com/the-black-donnellys/show/38704;_ylt=Avdb3g4h37YxkOzbT8hPA7_ko9EF

And don't forget: it premieres Monday, February 26 on NBC

Why I Love Higher Ground...

My college dorm didn't pick up Fox Family Channel (RIP), so YouTube is allowing me to watch ALL 22 episodes in order for the very first time. And it’s as awesome as I remember.

10. It’s about a boarding school for troubled teens in the Pacific Northwest. What’s not to love about that premise?

9. Pre-Star Wars Hayden Christensen as a moody jock, Pre-Firefly (but Post-Flash Forward) Jewel Staite as a moody goth chick, Pre-Criminal Minds AJ Cook as a moody abuse victim, Pre-Battlestar Galactica Kandyse McClure as a moody token black chick.

8. An episode that features Adam Beach as an intuitive Native American tracker, AND an Indian Spirit that speaks telepathically to bulimic/cutter Juliet while she's trapped in an underground cave. Seriously!

7. One word: Angst

6. Two words: Joe Lando

5. Three words: Canadian Teen Melodrama

4. Sheryl Crowe's "I Shall Believe," playing over the last scene of the series. Scott might be ruining his future to return to Shelby, but I’m too caught up in the moment to care.

3. It doesn't shy away from issues: parental and sexual abuse, alcoholism, suicide, teen prostitution, interracial adoption, cutting, huffing...

2. Even though the show aired in 2000, Hayden Christensen frequently rocks the turtle neck/button up combo.

1. Jules seems like she means it more than Ellie did when she cuts.

Online Viewing Update

The CW's offering episodes of many of their shows, including Supernatural (featuring these hunky and Blue Steel-channeling boys) on their website, cwtv.com.

If you love Canadian teen melodrama...

...and you know I do, then you have got to watch Instant Star on The N. Leading up to the Season 3 premiere on Friday, February 16, the-n.com is adding a few earlier episodes each week to their online player The Click.

The show's genius premise is that Jude Harrison is the winner of an American Idol-style competition and is thrust into the spotlight at 15. She's got a jealous older sister, a best friend who wants to be her boyfriend and an ex-boyband member producer with whom she shares a forbidden attraction. Plus (as if you need one), each episode features a totally catchy song and at the end of the season, they release an album.

I didn't get into the show until the second season, so I'm getting to enjoy all the plots that launched the drama I've already seen. In the episode Won't Get Fooled Again, Jude sings a raw ballad about her heart being broken. The song’s not about the producer who spurned her after a hot kiss on her birthday or her cheating rapper ex-boyfriend. It's about the fresh discovery that her beloved dad's cheating on her mom. And suddenly the show's not just about fun songs and escapist fantasies, but a hurt little girl with a whole lotta angst.

Alternative Viewing Update

Men in Trees in now available online at abc.com! So far it's just the pilot and the last episodes, but with shows like What About Brian? offering the full season, let's hope they'll add more soon. As the owner of a persnickety tivo, I've made it my business to know the following:


The-N.com offers new episodes of Degrassi and Instant Star.

NBC.com shows select series. Ratings challenged Friday Night Lights is available, but The Office is not.

CBS.com uses InnerTube to show comedies like How I Met Your Mother and The Class. The player doesn't work on my mac, but seems to be compatible with PCs.

ABC.com offers Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, Knights of Prosperity and several other shows.

YouTube and Google Video are hit and miss when looking for entire episodes, but using them I watched the full first season of The IT Crowd and the series finale of Everwood (what? I had to make sure they'd get a happy ending).

Preparing for the return of VM...

Veronica Mars returns Tuesday, January 23 with a brand new mystery. I'm excited, but it has occurred to me, maybe you don't watch Veronica Mars. It was on UPN so you assumed it sucked and by the time you'd heard it was magic, you were like "Well I'm so confused with this whole Lilly Kane thing and Veronica's drunk mom and is her dad really her dad? Wasn't there something about a rape or a school bus?" Yes, there was.

It's intimidating to jump into an already an established cult hit (side note: I'm doing just that with Battlestar Galactica right now. See. I can RELATE). So here's the good news: You've got a little under two weeks to get caught up on the goings on in Neptune, CA. You can Netflix (or purchase—used on Amazon is a nice option) the first two seasons and follow that up with Season 3 thus far on iTunes. Warning, this option is time-consuming and if you're not planning on tivo-ing the first few episodes of the new arc, you might not be giving yourself enough time to bask in the awesome of VM (or work and maintain your interpersonal relationships, whatev).

Then there's the option of just watching the third season on iTunes. You gotta do what you gotta do and if that means you miss out on seeing Logan and Veronica become "LoVe," then that's okay. The writers did a lovely job of setting up this season so that you don't have to know the ins and outs of the previous two years in order to really enjoy the show. And if you have any questions about the show, do not hesitate to send me a message. I have fully illustrated worksheets to help you understand even the most murky plot point.

Unaired Pilot: Heat Vision and Jack

Back in the day (you know, like 2002) if you wanted to watch an unaired pilot and you weren't a fancy Hollywood insider, then you had to rely on the perfect combination of a sticky fingered crew member and ebay. But no more! Behold, friends, the power of youtube.

In 1999 Ben Stiller directed the pilot of Heat Vision and Jack, a Six Million Dollar Man/Knight Rider spoof that starred Jack Black, as a former astronaut made super smart by accidental close contact with the surface of the sun, and Owen Wilson, as the voice of a talking motorcycle. Yeah, it's pretty damn awesome.
If Ron Silver playing Ron Silver, the actor-NASA trained killer hot on Jack's trail isn't enough to make you tune in, then how about Christine Taylor as a pouty Sheriff who rocks shorts and hot-rollered hair without even a wink of irony?

Seriously. http://youtube.com/watch?v=6lWgXDOAJ5s You won't be sorry.

I have an unlikely crush on...

Moss from The IT Crowd. He's socially retarded, but so, so funny. If he was a serial killer he would be the Gardner. And he would kill people with a hammer. Seriously! Go to Google Videos right now and watch The IT Crowd! Now!