ApeDonkey Power Rankings 3/29/11

Top 5

1. Houston - This is a big week here in Houston. The Final Four is coming along with all the attractions and events attached to it, as is the Shell Houston Open. The weather has been great here all week and should hold up through the weekend. Now don't go looking for me at any of the events around town because the only thing I like less than people is crowds of people. So I encourage everyone to get here spend your money and leave my city in one piece. We may never get another Super Bowl but the Final Four will be back in 5 years. See you then.

2. El Real - The only positive to getting the Power Rankings out so late is that I'm able to include El Real on the list. We've been waiting for this place to open for months. I was hoping to check it out when Southbound Food did their live broadcast from there a couple weeks ago but I left San Antonio too late and was unable to make it. We decided to wait until they started serving lunch so we could go at an off hour. That's always best with young kids. We finally made it over today and the food was a great as advertised. I went basic with cheese enchiladas, queso, rice and beans. The wife had the fajitas that came with a cup of this frothy garlic butter that I could have drank by the glassful. If you're a margarita person definitely get it on the rocks. It's simple, strong and delicious. Minus the two customers who were obviously pissed that I had procreated, it was a great experience.

3. John Harris - It was announced last week that John Harris will be getting his own national show working the overnight 1am - 5am central on Sporting New Radio. I've listened to Johnny since his days as the college football expert all the way through to his show with Raheel. By the way, I was completely wrong about the pairing of John and Harris. They've consistently produced a fun, entertaining show following John and Lance on 1560 The Game. I fully expect Raheel to continue killing it from 10-12p with a rotating list of guest hosts including David Nuno and Richard Justice.

Now back to John and his new show. Barry and I discussed this and thought this was a great move for John. His encyclopedic sports knowledge plays perfectly with the late night national caller. No one is better equipped to take calls about teams coast to coast and be able to talk intelligently about the entire roster. Johnny going national feels like a kid from the old neighborhood making it. He's made so in a sense we've all made it. I wish him all the best and any time I'm up at that hour, I'll be sure to check him out.

4. Shameless - Thank God for Shameless. Of the shows that had season finales the past couple of weeks, Shameless, Californication and Big Love, Shameless was the only one that gave us an excellent satisfying finale. After a little bit of a shaky start, Shameless has come on to be my second favorite new show of the year just behind Terriers and ahead of Rubicon. Of course, it's the only one of those three to get picked up for a second season. William H. Macy was the name going in to the season but Emmy Rossum has been the breakout star. She's given us a powerhouse performance as Fiona, a young woman just trying to keep her family together and raise her five brothers and sisters. It's really been an outstanding first season with strong performances from all the Gallagher kids. If you haven't checked it out try to catch up before season 2 starts next year.

5. Birthday Party - We celebrated my son's 2nd birthday this past weekend and if you weren't part of my immediate family, you weren't invited. That's because I'm a good human being and I know no one wants to be bothered with a kids birthday especially on a big sports weekend. The 2nd birthday is the one time you can get away with a simple "party" like this. Birthday number 2 lacks the milestone factor of the first birthday and the kid still doesn't know what the hell is going on. By the 3rd birthday they are starting to get it and from 4 on you're screwed. Just open up the pocket book and kiss your weekends goodbye because you'll be going to a birthday party every weekend for the next ten years. So happy birthday Cash. I hope you enjoyed your Barry's Pizza and cupcake and we'll do it again next year.


Bottom 5

1. Fucking Thieves - If you follow me on twitter and why wouldn't you be then you probably already know about my truck being broken in to and having my ipod and macbook stolen. My wife and I talked about this and considering all the vital information we had on the laptop like our businesses accounting, art files, tax information, etc. We would have rather they taken the truck and left the computer. Luckily, we do an off site backup for critical client files but what we are learning is that Carbonite apparently is running their servers with 28800 dial up modems. Here we are five days in and we are still restoring files to our new laptop. I could have manually transcribed the missing files by now.

Now let me tell you about the top notch security in the shopping center where Grand Luxe and Nordstrom's Rack is locate. First, when we realized what had happened, my wife had to literally chase the sixty-something year old security guard around the parking lot before I was finally able to get his attention by repeatedly honking at him. Once we had his attention and told him what had happened his reaction was priceless "really? I've been patrolling the area." Uh, yeah sure you were.  He tried to write a report but couldn't find a pen among the hundreds of old lollipop wrappers in his very intimidating golf cart. In the end we'll be alright. Home owner's insurance covers items taken from your car in this kind of situation but I could live without the pain and headache of it all and if the person who did it ends up in a burn unit soon, then all the better.

2. Mad Men - Great news coming out of Hollywood this week is that Mad Men season 5 is a go. The bad news is that we won't get to see it until sometime in 2012. The Sopranos think that's a long lay off. Part of the deal to bring the show back for a fifth season is AMC asking for the producers to cut two minutes from the show to open up more ad time and/or cut two regular characters from the cast. I'm fine with either or both of those options. Go ahead and take Betty or Bert or Ken. I can live without any of them. Bert makes the list because I can't stand people who don't wear shoes at work. If you need to cut a couple of minutes, I say go for it. I don't watch commercials anyway so no skin off my back. Just get your shit together and get Mad Men back on the air. Preferably before my kids graduate high school.

3. President Trump - The most shocking thing I heard more than one time this past week is "I'd vote for Donald Trump if he ran for President." The first time I heard this I stopped in mid conversation to verify what I'd just heard. People apparently think he'd have a good shot to fix the economy which that may be true, I don't know. I did remind them that he's gone bankrupt a couple of times but people do learn from mistakes. My biggest issue is that these people are forgetting one important issue. Donald Trump is a buffoon. This is the guy who hosts Celebrity Apprentice. Do you understand the national embarrassment of having state dinners at the gold leafed white house? Air Force One would be renamed The #1 Air Force One. I haven't even mentioned the hair. That is not presidential hair. You have to go all the way back to the early 1800's and Andrew Jackson to find a coif as crazy and unpresidential as Trump's.

4. Movie Reboots - I was reading an article yesterday that after The Dark Knight Rises they are planning to reboot the Batman series. What? I'm not a fan of all the series rebooting or the term rebooting. Teen Wolf as a Twilightesque show on MTV? The Karate Kid learning Kung Fu from Jackie Chan? Completely recasting and starting over with XMen? Ugh here's how a series is supposed to naturally progress. The first one is great and ground breaking. The second isn't quite as good but you add more villains to make up for the quality and by the fourth and fifth installments you've brought in Joel Schumacher to drive it into the ground. That is the life cycle of a movie franchise. It's tried and true and should not be messed with.

5. Elite Eight - Saturday Nicole Zierlein wrote a very touching blog post about her husband and young sons watching the elite eight games and specifically the Butler game together. I highly recommend you read it. If I wasn't a soulless robot, I probably would have been brought to tears. I on the other hand had a much different experience with Saturday's games. I had a little wager on Florida to beat Butler so I was intently watching that game. With a few minutes left, my wife who couldn't give a crap about basketball and is an incurable workaholic didn't know what to do with herself since she was without her laptop and couldn't work. After she complained of being bored and wanting to go out I finally agreed to go when the game ended. Little did I know the game would head to overtime. Being a man of my word though I said we could leave and I'd listen to overtime in the car. Well that was the plan. From the minute we closed the doors on the car my kid decided to be the loudest most irritating human on the planet. She channeled Lloyd Christmas and sang the words "Wipey, Dipey, Dipey" over and over again for a solid half hour until we finally reached the restaurant. After a nice dinner, the wife wanted to return some pants to The Gap and get a different pair. I was fine with that plan. The Gap was in the same parking lot and she rarely takes a long time doing stuff like that. We were in the store maybe 5 minutes when the 2 year old was going so apeshit crazy I decided I'd take him to the car and listen to the Arizona/UConn game while the girls finished up. I don't know exactly how long they were in the store but I ended listening to nearly the entire spectacular second half of the Zona/UConn game in the car with an exhausted, screaming 2 year old. Come to find out, my 6 year old had recently earned $20 from her grandmother and decided she wanted to buy herself something at Gap Kids. The problem is the self proclaimed fashionista had to actually touch, try on and examine every item in the store. And what did she finally emerge from the store with? A fucking pair of sunglasses. That's how I spent an outstanding Saturday of college basketball.

Shameless - "Father Frank, Full of Grace" Review

“Life’s messy. People have secrets.” -Fiona

Shameless wrapped up its first season yesterday with a wonderfully heartbreaking season finale. So much of the talk about Shameless was people being upset with the Gallagher’s and how they choose to live. If the Gallagher’s don’t care about their own lives, why should I? I think that some people had a hard time grasping the notion that not every person has a desire to “move up” in life. Remember that Shameless is a British show originally and across the pond the notion of the lower middle class sticking its nose at the upper class elite is a long standing tradition. The idea of the American Dream is still present in the United States however. People want to make enough money to be comfortable, to be rich. Not many are ok with the idea of not knowing how they’re going to play rent next month. This is why the Gallagher family is so polarizing in the public’s eyes. Here we have a family that is, at the center of it all, happy. Sure they have a myriad of problems and a lot of history to overcome, but they stick up for one another. They grasp the concept of love and who are we as an audience to hold that against them? The show needs to viewed through different lenses. I’m not suggesting detestable characters like Frank Gallagher get a pass. No far from it. What makes this show good is that we have humane and good natured characters doing the best with what they have. Frank does not fit that description. The show is about Fiona and her family.

Emmy Rossum turned in a brilliant performance as Fiona Gallagher over the course of the first season. Seeing her have to balance all the love she has for her family against the desire to be comfortable and selfish was a thing of beauty. The season finale was no exception. When Lip and Ian were released from prison it was nice to see her so relieved that they’re safe, but she still had the fire to smack them around and hold them accountable. Then as she was walking away, her knowing smile to Tony said so much. Fiona knows he’s a good person, maybe a great person, and she’s very grateful for what he’s done, but she is who she is and they couldn’t work right now. Another great Fiona moment happened when Ian told her he was gay for the first time. It wasn’t when she said, “I know,” because honestly I found that a little silly, but when she said, “You’re still on my shit list.” It’s a great moment for Ian’s character. He learns just how in tune his family is with him and that they care, but still won’t let him get away with whatever he wants. So it’s not surprising that Fiona chose to stay in Chicago rather than go to Costa Rica with Steve. She loves him, yes, but the deal has always been her plus her family and he knows that. Fiona’s idea of comfortability may rest in having a consistent job and bringing in a steady flow of cash. Steve will learn that he can’t take her away from her family.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Steve in season two. I was a little surprised when they didn’t bring up Steve’s duel lives to Fiona. It seemed like it was all but inevitable, however I’m glad they didn’t. Fiona needed to be faced with the decision to leave baggage free and choose to stay. If she would have known about Steve’s other life, it would have been Fiona sticking around because she had no other options. Now that she’s chosen to stay, the writers can fully expound on the Steve/Jimmy situation. Fiona has needed him for both emotional and financial stability, but now that Jasmine is in her life, Steve needs to be there as an emotional partner more than he has. That will be difficult with him in Costa Rica. I envision that the second season will pick up some time in the future where Fiona is stable and so are the rest of the Gallagher’s, but they’re not as happy. I think we need Steve in the show. He adds the element that money does not buy happiness.

Frank Gallagher is the show’s biggest concern going forward. He is such a detestable human being that it’s borderline cartoonish. Shameless tried their best by making him give a curbside apology to his son for sleeping with his girl. However, even that had him justifying his actions claiming that he was a victim in all of this as well. I will say, there was a glimmer of humanity when he jumped back into the urine stream. It was the most bizarre apology and acceptance perhaps ever captured on TV, but in Shameless it works. However, when I hear Frank claiming he’s the real victim, I think of Eddie Jackson. I never thought Eddie was a sympathetic character, but seeing what he went through was tough. Everyone abandoned him to the point where he took his own life at the one place where he felt happy. There wasn’t even that much hesitation when he decided to drop the cinder block in the water. The life that Frank lives is dangerous and wrong and it pains me to see him go unpunished. I’m not sure if he’ll ever change, or even if I want him to. Perhaps we need to hate him, but I’ll be damned if I ever feel any compassion for his character.

It’s for that reason that I don’t think he should be a focal point for the show. I think he is best served as a catalyst for other events. A great example of this is when he slept with Karen. The show didn’t go in a direction where it was all about Frank tying up all the loose the ends that that situation created. It instead let other characters discover the issue and then they handled everything on their own. Tell me you didn’t cheer a little inside when Lip started beating Frank in the snow. The south side of Chicago has a code. People look the other way on a lot of issues, but sleeping with a man’s young daughter is not tolerated. It’s good to see there’s some moral code in the world of Shameless.

Shameless - "Daddyz Girl' Review

“I’m happy with who we are. Even if you’re not.” -Ian

As we approach the season finale of Shameless, I find myself loving the show more and more every week. I liked the show from the beginning but I feel it’s really come into it’s own. Nothing has really dramatically changed structure wise since the pilot, but yet it continues to get better. The reason is so simple, yet many shows choose to ignore it: character development. Shameless has a host of characters and yet we know each and everyone of them. We may not like some, *cough* Frank *cough*, and others we have deep empathy for, like Fiona. Too often we can get caught up in the debate about serialized drama versus episodic or one camera shows or multi, but ultimately it all comes down to characters. People spent many years trying to find out what going to happen on Lost and lost the ability to enjoy the characters. Shameless has let us enjoy and grow with their characters, while still keeping us very much engaged in the story.

This week was all about raising the stakes. Characters and plot fall short if there are no obstacles to overcome and there is no danger involved with the decisions they make to overcome that obstacle. I’m not talking about Fiona deciding whether or not to jump off a cliff or not, but each decision she makes has consequences and thus has risk. It’s clear that she likes Steve, but up to this point, it’s also seemed like she needed him too. Steve was Fiona’s ticket to luxury and normal life. I wondered last week if the show took all the money away from Steve, if they would stay together. What happened instead was, Shameless introduced Jasmine who started showering Fiona with many gifts, but none more important than a job. Now Fiona doesn’t need Steve for stability monetarily, but rather emotionally. And with Steve in a lot of trouble with Tony, it looks like we could be back to independent Fiona. I don’t want Steve to leave, but I do think the honeymoon is over and he is going to have to do some serious work to get Fiona back, assuming he loses her.

In Philip and Ian’s quest to find Ian’s real dad, we learn a lot about their ideas for what they think of the Gallagher family and their life as a whole. It seems as though Lip is the one destined to make it out of the hood. He’s starting to have feelings for Karen, who we’ll get to in a second, and he keeps thinking about going to school. Ian is content, he doesn’t have the brain that Lip has. So just as we’re starting to root for a Gallagher to make it out, the show raises the stakes once again and gets Lip and Ian arrested. Lip will no doubt take responsibility and we are left wondering just what could have been. Through this obstacle, Shameless has now given us a rooting interest. Due to great character development over the course of the season we care very much what happens to Lip. Just another example of how the show is succeeding.

Perhaps the character that took me by surprise the most this season is Karen Jackson. She just started out as Lip’s friend with benefits, but has recently really come into her own as a force on the show. Shameless focuses a lot on “daddy issues” whether is be Frank, Steve’s perfect father, or in this case Eddie. Eddie got it into Karen’s head that he cared about her, but after learning of her many sexual encounters, he screamed at her and called he a whore, which she now has tattooed on her arm. When she was first upset, I thought it was more superficial. I thought she was just mad because he wouldn’t get her the car he promised to get her. It turns out, there’s only so much a kid can take. Karen embarked on a rage induced depression crusade where it appears her only goal is to make her father miserable. She spray paints his room, breaks his car window, cuts her hair, pierces her body, and starts a cam website. At first it was a type of diary, but she took it to the next level when she filmed her and Frank having sex in his room. Shameless really kicked it up a notch here and this splash will surely have rippling effects on all members of the Gallagher family.

All that being said, I can’t wait for the season finale next week. I’m curious whether we’ll get some form of closure on this season or if it will be left open ended. Either way, I don’t anticipate being let down in any way.

Other thoughts:

Hearing Emmy Rossum singing badly reminds me just how great of a singer she actually is. She at a young age of 18, played Christine in the movie remake of Phantom of the Opera. I half expected her to belt out some great notes and Steve try and market her voice. But that’s a different show altogether.

As someone who uses a pneumatic staple very often, one staple through the hand wouldn’t cause that much damage. You’d be out for a week tops. I’m not mad or anything, because I realize that injury needed to be one that still allowed for him to come home and sleep with Karen.

I found it particularly amusing when Carl made the impression of his middle finger in the needle toy. They’ve done a good job keeping him consistent. It was also great when he tried to hit on the 12 year old in the truck. Subtle, but good.

Just how many show is Brad William Henke on right now? He’s Coover Bennet in Justified, Ernie Moosekian in The Chicago Code and now Hal in Shameless! Good for him. Good work if you can get it.

Shameless - "But At Last Came A Knock" Review

“I was raised by a pack of wolves, just like you were. Only my wolves went to Harvard.” -Steve

Shameless delivers it’s most emotional episode thus far. We get an incredible performance from Emmy Rossum and some really nice developments in the characters. The episode accomplished a few major things. Debs now knows about Steve’s secret life and Fiona realizes that she needs to be a little bit selfish and have a life of her own thanks to the arrival of her mother, Monica. These are two huge developments and I will say that the episode seemed a bit disjointed. These two huge plot developments might have deserved their own individual episode, but nevertheless, we got a solid 50 minutes of entertainment tonight.

At the outset of the episode I was thinking Shameless was up to their old tricks again. We get a nice story from Fiona and the other siblings and the Frank story is a side bar about him chasing money and getting drunk. We learned last week that Frank will do anything for money, even stay sober. So it was interesting when he couldn’t get go through with contacting Monica and even further when he couldn’t face her. Maybe I had missed hearing her name before, but I didn’t think all these shenanigans from Frank would lead to the mother showing up. But when she showed up, boy did she change the dynamic of the show in a hurry.

Debs is the first kid to see her and she greets her by shoving her to the ground. Then Debs tells the whole family mom is back at Sheila’s. There was a very nice moment when Fiona, Lip, and Liam all seem to think Frank did something wrong, but Debs screams back in defense of her father, “Why do you always blame Dad first?” The family is moved to silence at the news of their mother being in town. Liam runs away to Mickey and the rest of the family goes to see her. At Sheila’s house we learn that Monica and her life partner Roberta want to start a family and they want to take Liam with them. In perhaps the finest acting of the season Fiona passionately defends he family. She resents that her mother left her with the kids and left her with all the work to do. The years of pent up rage come flying out when she says she wants to start a family. “Well how about you finish this one first?” Debs and Carl are extremely conflicted emotionally and when they hug their mother, Fiona has had it and leaves. Up until this point I had always wondered why the children put up with Frank. Frank is a worthless father, but he did one thing that can’t be forgotten in their lives, he stayed. The Gallagher’s don’t care about a lot of things, but family and loyalty, they care very much.

Fiona ran away and no surprise, Steve came and comforted her with a new house he bought her. Rewind to the beginning of the episode. Debs is skeptical that Steve is cheating, so she does some detective work and finds out about Steve’s real life as Jimmy Lishman from the North Side. There was a really great scene with Steve and Debs while Mrs. Lishman is ratting out Steve’s gimmick. Just Steve staring at her with a look of terror while Debs gazes on in disappointment. No words between the two, just a story told in body language. Steve has to come clean to Debs and says he doesn’t want a life where he’s expected to be a prim and proper doctor, he just wants to be happy. One concern I have with all of this is that Steve’s go to move is to provide for Fiona’s needs with gifts. I wonder how compatible the two would be if he didn’t have all that money. Does the car thievery really pay that well? Or is he still living off family money? I know Fiona just wants Steve, but the gifts are a bonus.

Fiona will inevitably find out about Steve’s double life. Fiona’s stance on lying is very clear. She told Steve he could sleep with other girls as long as he told the truth, so something tells me Fiona won’t take the news too lightly. One question. We saw Steve kiss a girl we thought was his girlfriend/wife last episode on the mouth, and this week his mother awkwardly kissed him long and good on the mouth. Was Candace Lishman (as it says in his phone) just his sister? Is the mouth kissing a Lishman family tradition? I think Fiona could be talked into staying with Steve if he just lied about his family. But lying about a girlfriend/wife? I don’t think she sticks around.

I’m excited about a few things going forward. The first is I can’t wait to see Fiona fight for her family. It’s clear she wants to move forward with Steve, so I hope they try and start a family together with the children as their legal dependents. I also think there’s a lot of legs to Lip learning Steve’s trade. Lip has a brilliant mind, but doesn’t want to leave the hood. A way he can use his intelligence to get rich and stay a degenerate is by perfecting the art of car thievery. Ten minutes on the job and he already had a few ideas for Steve on how to make business better. Because I love their relationship, I wonder what will happen with Kev and Veronica and their foster child. She took a back seat once Monica showed up, but I am interested to see if they continue to develop this awkward family. I’m not so sure Veronica is ready to go from single to a grandmother in the span a few weeks though.

Shameless - "Frank Gallagher: Loving Husband, Devoted Father” Review

“You know when a plane starts going down and they tell you to put your mask on before helping anyone else? Put your mask on Fiona!” -Steve

Shameless’s success is made possible by the way it’s relationships are built. We have a stake in every one of them and yet we don’t know why. Is it because most of us can commiserate with the Gallagher’s way of life? Or is it that in some way we’re jealous of complicated simplicity of their life. Many people are obsessed with getting the next promotion, looking for the perfect person, or trying to find purpose in our day to lives. The Gallagher’s have but one thing to worry about, survival. As simple sounding as the task is, Shameless proves that in the pursuit survival there are speed bumps. These obstacles cause heartache, laughter, and tension, but yet, the drive remains the same. Survive at all costs.

I’m starting to care more about the day to day living of the Gallagher’s. Their survival is incredibly interesting. I’m in no rush to see them better themselves if it means less of the scrambling to treat themselves to illegal delicacies that literally fall off the back of a truck. One of the best touches was when Fiona came home from her night out and seamlessly jumped right in with the faking of Frank’s death. No questions asked. Perhaps rather than wanting the Gallagher’s to improve their situation, we should be rooting for them to find happiness. Tell me you weren’t rooting for Fiona to take the night off with Steve. Tell me you didn’t laugh when all the kids raised their hands to the question if they at one pointed wanted to see Frank dead and seeing Frank be so happy that they answered yes. Frank singing “Family Tradition” at his own wake just perfectly encapsulates the show. We may not understand everything the Gallagher’s are going through, but we wish them well.

There is, however, one grievance I have. Why do all the kids care so much about Frank? Frank tried to sell a vet’s gold watch, rob a blind man, and stick up an old lady to try and get the money. What is something Frank won’t do? I need him to do something redeeming or else the show will become predictable. It can’t just be Fiona cleaning up after Frank episode after episode can it? The Gallagher’s don’t hold many societal norms with high regard, except for family. It’d be extremely hard for me to forgive everything Frank has done and yet continue to risk everything to protect him. Is there something he has done in the past to make himself this beloved by his family? Or is it just the fact that he is family?


Other Thoughts:

- In the ugly world they create for Emmy Rossum, they find a way to make Fiona unbelievably sexy. Her skinny dipping scene was perhaps one of the sexiest scenes on any show this season, period.

- The Kash/Liam/Linda love triangle is starting to get interesting. I wonder how long Liam will keep it up now that its not secret anymore. Kash helped him be ok with his homosexuality and now Liam is starting to be ok finding love in other places.

- Joan Cusack’s character is wonderful. We don’t spend a ton of time with her, but she has so many levels and we care about her. It takes a combination of great acting, writing and directing to pull that off. The sounds and sights they exaggerate when showing the world of Chicago come across as menacing and it makes us understand why the way she is.

- I think the relationship between Steve and Kev could be an interesting one. Two opposite guys both going after the same type of girl. I’m interested to see how much advice Kev is going to give to Steve and if it works. Though I do watching Steve bumble around trying to get to Fiona almost as much as I like the Gallagher’s scrambling to get fed.

Shameless-ly Lights Out Episodes

As the calendar flipped from 2010 and we all mourned the loss of Terriers and Rubicon, 2011 arrived and brought us a brand new batch of shows to love and then see unceremoniously canceled before their time. Well some of them will just be put out of their misery or our misery depending on your point of view.

Sunday kicked off a the new season for Showtime including two new shows to bookend every red blooded man's favorite Californication, Shameless and Episodes. Shamelesss the hour long drama about a tight-nit group of siblings struggling to keep the lights on and their dead beat drunk dad off the floor. Episodes is the new half hour Matt LeBlanc vehicle about an English TV writing couple who move to LA to adapt their series for American television and have Matt LeBlanc forced upon them by the network.

On Tuesday FX brought us Lights Out, the new boxing drama to love and hate for all the same reasons we love and hate every boxing drama. Holt McCallany plays Patrick "Lights" Leary a former heavyweight champ who five years in to retirement finds himself broke. With three kids, a mortgage and a wife in med school, what's an old fighter to do but put everything on the line for that one last big purse.

Shameless

The Good

I guess Emmy Rossum was a star before this show, she was in Day After Tomorrow and The Phantom of the Opera. I didn't see either movie so she was a refreshing new face to me. And what a new face it is. Five minutes in and it's obvious she's the real star of the show. I liked brothers Lip and Ian a lot too. There's definitely room for fun and tension between these two. Lip is the schemer of the two and the only family member that knows Ian is gay. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind further exploits these two find themselves in. A dad catching you getting a hummer from his daughter under the dinning room table was quite a start.


The Bad

William H. Macy's Frank was a little too much caricature and not enough character. I think he was supposed to provide a little levity to a depressing situation but came off as over the top and rather pathetic. I don't get the Steve character at all. You have a poor Chicago family based in the realities of the lower class and then you throw in a character out of 'Gone in 60 Seconds' complete with his own slow motion action scene. 

Wishful Thinking

I want to see the kids and especially Fiona deal with the realities of her dead beat father. There has to be resentment and buried hatred for what he's done to her and the family towards Frank. At some point, Fiona has to deal with what she's lost by having to be a mother to all these other kids. I really don't care what happens between her and Steve in the future. The less we see of him the better as far as I'm concerned. I hope to see William H. Macy get to develop this character and add a greater level of depth than we got to see in the first episode. I was excited by what I saw from the previews for the upcoming season and I'm looking forward seeing where this goes.

Episodes

The Good
 The Brits had good English accents? It was good to see John Pankow in something. I thought the guy had falling off the Earth since playing Michael J. Fox's buddy Fred Melrose in The Secret of My Success. The first episode was just about as boring as its lead characters.


The Bad
It was dreadfully boring. LA jokes are easy and old. The network supporting characters were the same tired cliches we've seen a thousand times. Crickets lots and lots of crickets.

Wishful Thinking
I'm going to give it another episode before I flush it because the "star" of the show Matt LeBlanc doesn't show up until the next episode.  And yes that's how boring the premiere was. We're hoping Matt LeBlanc can save it.

Lights Out

The Good
Holt McCallany owned the role of Lights Leary. Aside from him being a white heavyweight, I had no doubt that he was a retired boxing champ. The boxing scenes, limited number of them there was, were already better than the scenes from The Fighter. Pablo Schreiber and Stacy Keach are both nice as Leary's brother/manager and father respectively. The premiere was mostly spent setting up the back story and issues Leary will have to confront as he gets ready to get back into the ring after a five year layoff.


The Bad
Was it impossible to find an American actress to play Leary's wife. Or at least someone who wouldn't constantly butcher a New York, American or whatever accent she was trying to do. I've never been a Catherine McCormack fan and she's done nothing so far on Lights Out to change that. The story is cliche. Ok it's more than cliche it's basically the only retired boxing champ story there is.

Wishful Thinking
Boxing stories build drama naturally. You're capturing two men who are stepping into an arena to battle one another. As long as the cast delivers solid performances and the director doesn't run the ship aground this series should be a keeper.