S02E01-related stories
Posted Sep 28th 2009 10:02PM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Lie to Me

(S02E01) "Oh, your husband likes unprotected sex with hookers, so it might be a good time to get yourself tested for, you know, everything really." - Cal
Lies! Lies! Lies! Or are they? With the return of Lie to Me comes a whole new batch of poker faces for The Lightman Group to interpret and fortunately for us, the overall vibe of the show is a lot more believable than it used to be. If I'm going to watch a show where the lynch-pin of every episode rests on the ability of Tim Roth's Dr. Cal Lightman to negotiate all the little twists a suspect's face makes, then I better not be able to figure it out myself in the first five minutes. When I recently spoke with Roth, he said the show was a lot better now. He wasn't lying.
Continue reading Lie to Me: The Core of It (season premiere)
Posted Sep 28th 2009 10:02AM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Interviews, Celebrities, Pickups and Renewals, Early Looks, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Press Kits Unwrapped, Lie to Me
Lie to Me is not a show that grew on me last season. When it first premiered earlier this year, I didn't even bother watching it. I tend to shy away from mid-season replacements to begin with and something about seeing Tim Roth speaking in his normal British accent in promos for the show seemed weird to me.
Then summer arrived, TV viewing options started to dwindle, and suddenly Lie to Me became a viable option. I watched the pilot, was mildly amused, and then dropped it for over a month before I looked at another episode. At first, it wasn't that great, and now that I've had the opportunity to speak to Roth about it, it's good to know that I wasn't alone in thinking that.
Continue reading Talking truth with Tim Roth of Lie to Me
Posted Sep 4th 2009 3:01PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Early Looks, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free

The level that FX's
Sons of Anarchy's second season has to reach to top their outrageous first might seem unfathomable. But the man helming this ship is writer, creator and executive producer Kurt Sutter - the man who helped steer
The Shield through seven strange and unpredictable seasons of treacherous waters that were once deemed unchartable for the likes of basic cable.
It's tight control on what appears to be complete chaos. Sutter and company are a fleet of reckless
Sledge Hammers who are willing to blow up whole buildings to get the job done. Trust him. He knows what he's doing.
FX's white hot biker drama kicks off Tuesday and it brings all of the blood, guts, bullets and glory that the first season did in buckets. And that's just in the first five episodes.
Continue reading Sons of Anarchy, season two -- An early look
Posted Jan 7th 2009 11:15PM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free

(S02E01) "Actually, I take that back. You should be scared. You should be terrified." - Ellen
Payback's a bitch, ain't it? Not if you're Ellen Parsons - then it's a slow, methodical, patience-testing process where it apparently takes six months before you get to shoot a gun. And thus begins the second chapter in the twisted law legacy of Ellen Parsons. After one episode, David Connor's killer is no longer the issue at the top of everyone's mind.
Continue reading Damages: I lied, too (season premiere)
Posted Dec 16th 2008 11:14AM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Early Looks, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free

The law/crime genre is a tired and used television landscape. In an era where almost every channel has been saturated with no less than four
Law & Order's, three
CSI's, and countless other attempts - some good, some bad - it reached a point where it seemed as though we'd seen it all. Then FX premiered
Damages back in July 2007 and everything changed. Fast-forward over a year later, add in three history-making Emmy wins, a Golden Globe, and one lingering question remains - how can they possibly re-create the tense past-meets-present plot device that made season one so unique and memorable?
Continue reading Damages: season two - An early look
Posted Mar 2nd 2008 11:01PM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: OpEd, Dirt, Episode Reviews

(S02E01) "No honey, I love the pudding. You can have the applesauce." - Lucy
Lucy Spiller is back! Hold your breath though because those stab wounds she received from Julia Mallory in last season's Dirt finale must've taken away some of her trademark bitchiness. Lucy, while still 100% dedicated and obsessed with her job as editor of Dirt Now magazine, is a lot nicer than I remember her to be. Is that a bad thing though?
Continue reading Dirt: Welcome to Normal (season premiere)
Posted Sep 20th 2006 11:05PM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, CBS, OpEd, Criminal Minds

(S02E01) I really like this show and I think CBS was smart to give it a second season. It's nothing special, just remarkably consistent in the sense that at the end of the episode I always feel satisfied. Like I didn't waste my time by watching the whole hour. Unlike say any of the three Law and Order series. I've always found those shows to be a crap shoot. Sometimes they're good (really good), but more often than not... they're crap. With Criminal Minds, I dunno... it's like Won-Ton soup. You just can't go wrong.
Continue reading Criminal Minds: The Fisher King, Part Two (season premiere)