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I have surprisingly little to say about this; only that it was everything I’d hoped it be, and I can’t wait to see more.  It delivers a near-perfect homage to what came before, while simultaneously carrying the series forward into new territory.  I laughed, I cried (no, really) and for 90 minutes I had a huge idiotic grin on my face.  Good news, everyone!

It took a really long time for people to convince me to watch this show. I mean, look at everything it has going against it for a moment: on the outside, it appears to be a melodramatic chick show, packed with shmaltz. (And indeed, none of the show’s many cheerleaders could dispute this point.) It’s an hour-long, apparently family-friendly drama running on one of those channels that isn’t a proper network, nor is it a proper cable channel. (WB? UPN? LMNOP? Who even knows anymore?) Also, there’s not a single vampire or starship to be seen. And you seriously think this is a show I will like?

People — many people, from different corners of my circle of friends — insisted that I would. One person in particular, whose recommendation record with me is pretty much spotless, actually promised that I would enjoy it. And this is why I finally checked it out, because nobody enjoys a good “I told you so” gloat more than I do. Except that he was absolutely right. Again.

Let’s be clear: Gilmore Girls is everything it appears to be from the outside. It is, essentially, a prime time soap opera about a mother and daughter. It explores their relationship with one another, their various wins and losses in the romantic world and it’s all accompanied by mopey girls playing guitars (with the occasional mopey guy playing a guitar thrown in for good measure).

But it’s also incredibly witty. The dialogue has a very stylized, almost Joss Whedonish quality about it (which is why it’s no real surprise that Jane Espenson, one of the best writers on Buffy, is now working on it). And the show’s antecedents may include Dawson’s Creek and 90210 (or perhaps better examples that escape me at the moment), but they also include a bit of Northern Exposure and Andy Griffith. See, the thing a lot of people don’t tell you when they’re trying to sell you on this show is that it’s one of those ensemble pieces about a small town full of quirky, interesting folk. And with good writing behind it, that’s a concept that has always worked for me.

I wolfed down the first two seasons of the show pretty obsessively on DVD this past summer, and I had the following several seasons poised strategically in my Netflix queue. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the writers, my interest dropped sharply as season two’s various conflicts played out.

Here’s the problem: all the great dialogue and well-conceived characters in the world cannot save a show that refuses to move the plot forward in any meaningful fashion. I mean, yes, young Rory moves through high school and presumably goes off to college. Hot mom Lorelai probably moves her career forward, as the early clues indicate she might do. But romantically, the woman runs in place for two years, and from what I’ve heard, she’s stuck in exactly the same holding pattern as of season seven.

The “will they or won’t they?” problem is a dicey one that has been handled with varying degrees of success over the years. Cheers did it pretty well when Sam and Diane hooked up, I thought. Moonlighting, as I understand it, took a nosedive when they tried to resolve their tension. Gilmore Girls will probably never have this problem, since it clearly has no intention of hooking up the two moony-eyed characters who are obviously in love with one another despite the various goings-on in their lives. And I can only watch that sort of thing for so long without wanting to throw something at the TV.

Okay, kudos to the show for making me care enough to want to throw something at the TV. And kudos for creating a realistic protagonist who just plain doesn’t know what she wants. But damn it, I need forward motion in my drama. If I wanted to watch a whiny, indecisive person who can’t seem to get their life together, I’d look in the mirror. This is the reason I don’t watch reality television either: I want escapism from my entertainment, not a reminder that human beings can be insensitive cockteases.

Still, if you look at each individual episode, Girlmore Girls is a surprisingly sweet and funny show. It only really falters when it comes to the bigger picture.

Arrested Development didn’t just change the way I look at television — it changed the way I look at comedy. It’s so incredibly well-crafted and dense that I’m actually intimidated by the prospect of ever writing something that approaches this level of quality and complexity.

It subscribes to that Simpsons sensibility: chuck in every kind of joke you can (highbrow, lowbrow, pop culture references) at a dizzying pace and trust the audience to keep up with it. But it takes that approach (which has gained considerable popularity in the last decade or so) to the next level by setting up elaborate continuity jokes and recurring themes. This is a show that begs to be seen on DVD.

Here’s an example: halfway through season two, Buster ditches his Army training and spends the day trying to retrieve a toy seal from one of those arcade claw machines. About half a dozen episodes later, Buster loses his hand, which is replaced with a claw, to a loose seal. The incident traumatizes him, much in the way his overbearing mother — Lucille — has for his entire life. If that setup/payoff does not simply make your head burst into flames, you’re not paying enough attention.

Lines of dialogue and situations that repeat throughout the series are perfectly timed. They don’t overuse the device, but they don’t let you forget about the various running gags either. Somehow they manage to wait just the right amount of time between recurrences to make them funnier each time.

The format — a pseudo-documentary with running narration — which you’d think would get tiresome and insult your intelligence, never does. And Ron Howard’s voiceovers add the perfect subtle push over the top to any jokes that might not quite make it on their own.

Somehow, Arrested Development manages to make tired sitcom ideas — a couple with a gay husband in denial, a drunk and bitter mother, a 30ish mama’s boy — work in entirely new ways. And somehow they made a slew of forgotten stars of the 70s and 80s — Henry Winkler, Scott Baio, Jason Bateman, Judge Reinhold, Carl Weathers, Liza Minelli and many more — funny and relevant again. And hopefully it made a few new stars out of the its showbiz virgins. Michael Cera, the kid who plays hapless cousin-luster George Michael Bluth, deserves a lifetime of juicy roles based solely on his performance in season 2’s “Good Grief.”

Just throw this on the very long list of shows that have been undeservingly canceled by Fox. But then again, as I said before, this show can only be truly appreciated on DVD anyway. It’s not really a “catch an episode when you can” kind of show. It’s a show that rewards you for keeping up with the whole thing, and for paying attention. I’ve been through it four times now and I’m still spotting jokes.

Also, believe it or not, this show will force Europe’s “The Final Countdown” into your head for weeks. Don’t try to fight it.

I’ve just finished watching all twenty-five episodes of this series (the season one box set plus last week’s season two opener) over the course of four days, and I can safely say that it’s one of the most intense TV experiences I have ever had. While I resisted the premise for some time — I mean, “a bunch of people stranded on a deserted island” doesn’t exactly scream “original” — it turns out that Lost is nothing like Gilligan’s Island or Survivor. If anything, it’s a worthy successor to Twin Peaks.

Like that other show, Lost isn’t just a stylish character drama. There’s a certain pervasive mystery to the whole thing — a mystery that the viewer is forced to digest from the beginning, before we’re even clear on who all the players are. The show cleverly unfolds each of its dozen or so characters’ (occasionally intertwining) backstories in bite-sized flashbacks throughout the first season, never losing sight of the ongoing conflict in the present. And by the end of the first 24 episodes, we’re left with a large handful of fascinating characters, dealing with stuff that must make some kind of sense, but isn’t quite there yet. (That’s a good thing.)

It has been said that Lost will not suffer the same fate that Twin Peaks or The X-Files did, because its creators have a clear sense of what’s behind the mystery, and where everything is headed, and intend to feed us hints and answers regularly. If that’s the case, however, they’ve done an amazing job of keeping us guessing, because I personally have no clue. You know who also doesn’t have a clue? People on the internet. I’ve read theories ranging from the absurdly fantastical (everyone on the flight died) to the absurdly scientific (it’s all nanites), and none of it really seems to fit. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m content to just sit back and let the show take me where it’s going. I don’t really have any theories just yet. Beyond my belief that everything will ultimately have a rational explanation of some kind, I’m just happy to be along for the ride.

From the opening ten minutes — in which the survivors flee the still-burning wreckage of their plane — the show hits you right in the creeped-out center of your brain. And while I wouldn’t describe the show as exactly “horror,” there are definitely some creepy moments here that top anything I’ve seen in that genre. They also have an excellent sense of pacing, which is why I simply had to blow through all the DVDs so quickly. It’s just one of those constant cliffhanger experiences that compels you to press on and see what happens next.

Thankfully, the second season’s opener seems to have continued this fine tradition, and had me so engaged in the unfolding of one plot that I almost didn’t realize we weren’t even shown the fate of several other characters in a separate dangling thread from last year. By the looks of things, it’s gonna be another great year. I just hate that TV on DVD has spoiled me so much, and now I have to wait for new episodes like a commoner.

Also, Evangeline Lilly is hot. That is all.

If sitcoms were like this, I might actually consider watching them.

Spaced is an absolutely amazing show, and no simple encapsulation of its concept would do it justice. Because really, the setup is very much the standard sitcom stuff: two relative strangers, one male and one female, have to pretend they’re a couple to share an apartment (or “flat,” as they call it in their strange, almost-English language). They have wacky neighbors and wacky friends. They acquire a dog. They sort-of almost hook up a bunch of times, in a whole “will they/won’t they” situation.

Only, somehow, this show manages to make all of this interesting again. (Was it ever before?) It doesn’t so much twist these situations as it does present them in an exciting, surreal-yet-believable way that really does seem fresh and original. It packs itself full of the same dense, rapid-fire pop culture referencing that we’ve come to expect from the likes of The Simpsons, but does it in a way that feels natural and not at all forced. This, I believe, has a lot to do with the characters on which it builds its foundation.

Because, beyond all British cleverness, Spaced is constructed around two very believable leads: Tim (Simon Pegg of Shaun of the Dead fame) and Daisy (Jessica Stevenson). The chemistry between them is quite apparent from the pilot onward (which is good, since the two seasons are only 7 episodes apiece and there’s not a lot of time to wait for things to develop), and the fact that Pegg and Stevenson co-wrote the entire series together accounts for the intimacy and character-driven nature of the thing.

The reason all the goofy pop culture references and occasional turns into absurd humor really work is because Tim and Daisy are believable and fun people. They’re 20-something geeks who pepper their speech with regular references to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, comic books and Star Wars. (In fact, a running gag in series two involves Tim’s scorned lover rage over the disappointment that was The Phantom Menace.) Because they’re both just so natural as typical twenty-first century nerds, the almost stream-of-consciousness nature of the narrative makes perfect sense. We are, after all, the generation of ADD and media saturation. So, for example, an impromptu Pulp Fiction re-enactment does not seem terribly out of place when you’re really trying to get inside our heads.

And yes, I say “us,” because that’s what makes this show really special: it really gets what it means to be a sci-fi/fantasy/comic book geek in this particular time, perhaps more than anything else I have seen. It grasps that we’re not the stereotypical basement dwellers who can’t get a date, but that we can have relationship troubles and all the other crap that the pretty people on Friends went through. And honestly, for as much as I crushed on Jennifer Aniston for so many years, I think my current crush on Jessica Stevenson actually eclipses all of that. Nerdy, clever girl with English accent? Yes please.

So yeah, Spaced is a true show for my people. I’m almost positive I missed a whole bunch of stuff the first time around (partially because I was laughing so hard and partially because I couldn’t always get past the accents 100%), and I look forward to seeing it again. And again. This one is definitely a keeper.

One final note: this DVD set is not actually available in the US. A friend of mine got me a copy in the UK, and I managed to make it run on my computer. It’s really a shame, because quite a lot of people in the US enjoyed Shaun of the Dead, and I’m almost certain those same people would adore this as well.

When Star Trek: Deep Space Nine hit the air in 1993, I wanted nothing to do with it. This is relevant because, when DS9 hit the air, I was deep in what I now refer to as my “Star Trek escapism period.” My personal life (largely due to my own ineptitude and irresponsibility) was a mess, and I found regular solace in The Next Generation, which was very much peaking at the time, quality-wise. That anyone would consider creating a different, darker show — especially so soon after the death of Trek patriarch Gene Roddenberry — well, it was as close to blasphemous as my vocabulary allowed.

Odd now, 11 years later, that DS9 stands as my favorite Star Trek series — possibly my favorite overall TV series — ever. It turns out that everything that made the show different from Next Generation was, paradoxically, everything that made it just as great, if not better.

The biggest complaint from most Trekkies at the time — me included — was that the show didn’t go anywhere. After two series featuring starships boldly going, it seemed stifling to create a story centered around a space station. But instead of confining DS9 to unimaginative and repetitive plots, staying in one place liberated it. It forced a continuing focus, rather than moving from wacky planet to wacky planet week after week. It created an atmosphere of introspection and reflection, rather than one of outward exploration. And this is especially relevant given the show’s strong spiritual underpinnings.

It’s been said that Gene Roddenberry would have hated Deep Space Nine — especially the religious aspects of it. (Roddenberry was an atheist.) But, as an atheist myself, I can say with confidence that one of the show’s greatest strengths came from the whole Prophets/Emissary angle of things. We are frequently reminded that the inhabitants of DS9’s wormhole could be both the mysterious prophets of the Bajoran religion and a highly advanced race of non-linear aliens. The concepts are not mutually exclusive — science does not rule out faith, or vice-versa. It’s a very delicate line that was expertly walked for seven years, and never once is there so much as a stumble. The prophets/wormhole aliens gave the show a mystical (yet plausible, within the realm of cold, hard Federation logic) vibe that one never thought possible in a Star Trek series.

Witnessing the evolution of Benjamin Sisko — first as a reluctant and bitter commander, later as a more confident and decisive captain and ultimately as the willing Emissary of the Prophets — is worth the price of admission alone. That Sisko (the occasionally over-the-top but undeniably powerful Avery Brooks) shares the spotlight with six or seven equally interesting principal characters elevates it beyond a mere allegory of good versus evil and the power of spirituality. There’s a lot going on here, not only with Sisko and his crew, but also among the finest assortment of supporting characters I’ve ever seen. An entire episode in season six focused on Morn — a background character in Quark’s bar who is occasionally spoken of, but who is never seen doing more than inhabiting a barstool — and his story is just as compelling as any other the series had to offer.

Watching the series, as we did, in its entirety, over the course of a couple of months, really drove home just how well it holds together as one long story. As early as season one, the seeds of “the Dominion” are planted, in the form of seemingly meaningless dialogue references. By season three, the direction of the show solidifies, and the remainder of the series unfolds like one incredibly long, amazingly gripping, movie. Even the early dependence on guest stars and borrowed situations from Next Gen are forgivable as it’s clear we’re being steered in an entirely different and fascinating direction.

DS9 featured some great original sci-fi concepts, not the least of which were the primary antagonists, The Founders. A race of shapeshifters who exist naturally in a liquid state, The Founders enjoy most of their existence inside what is called The Great Link — a giant ocean of liquid Founders, swirling and mixing within one another. It is their history with “the solids,” a history that involves the classic “persecution because we’re different” that might be a cliché if it weren’t so damn true in human experience, that forces the birth of The Dominion. In the interest of maintaining order in the galaxy and keeping “the solids” in check, The Founders build themselves a genetically engineered army of soldiers (the Jem Hadar), and a smaller army of diplomats (the Vorta). What our intrepid, ever-optimistic Starfleet folk find waiting for them on the other side of their newly-discovered wormhole is a well-established Dominion that cannot abide the disorder of even more solids. And hence, a war — the primary conflict for the second half of the series — is born.

But for all the new and wondrous concepts the show delivered, it also stayed quite true to its Trek roots. Though the show’s writers found quickly that it was important to distance themselves from Next Gen, they were unafraid to hearken back to the common ancestor of them both: the original Star Trek. Over the course of the series, we are treated to appearances by three original Klingons (Kang, Kor and Koloth, each of whom faced Kirk in mortal combat), the Orion Syndicate (often a thorn in the side of Kirk’s Federation) and the Mirror Universe (you know, Spock with a beard). And then there’s the classic “Trials and Tribble-ations,” which finds the crew traveling back to Kirk’s time and directly interacting in events that we’ve seen once already. Seeing that fully realized 3D model of the original Enterprise, recreations of those sets and Kirk appearing to yell at Chief O’Brien for starting a fight… well, it’s hard to explain. The best phrase for it is probably “fanboy orgasm” — when two of your obsessions collide perfectly in a moment of goosebump-inducing bliss. (Yes, I’m a loser. Get over it already.)

Though the show was portrayed as “dark,” it still managed to carry that basic positive Star Trek message that humanity will prevail. Beneath it all, though, was an indescribable feeling of melancholy and isolation. I have never been able to adequately articulate this very abstract feeling, but it’s been present in all my favorite television series: Buffy, Angel, Twin Peaks and Deep Space Nine. It’s this sense that, while we may be surrounded by people who love us, we are each ultimately alone in the world, and nothing can change that. It’s not an overwhelming feeling, and certainly not one that drags the series down. But it’s always there, lingering behind everything else. Again, words fail. But it’s there.

There were dark elements, of course. We got glimpses of the seamy underbelly of twenty-fourth century life, from the sleazy Quark’s bar (complete with pornographic holosuites) to the shadowy Section 31, which is to Starfleet what the CIA is to our military. And then there’s the war. Next Gen gave us some fantastic battles, but they were always over within a couple of episodes. Even the Borg, that show’s greatest threat, really only showed up in force for two episodes — mostly, they were just hinted at or featured in the background. But DS9’s Dominion War lasts through three solid seasons of action and tragedy. We’ve always suspected what it might look like if Starfleet had to carry on an extended military engagement, but here we get a sustained, realistic look at it. War is hell in the twenty-fourth century, of course, just as it has been in any other.

It’s hard not to compare DS9 to TNG, especially since they started out with a minor TNG player (Chief Miles O’Brien) being thrust into a major role and brought on a major cast member (Worf) by season four. But, once again to the credit of the show’s writers, Worf’s arrival felt incredibly natural, as if it had been planned all along. As tensions build between the Klingons and the Federation (thanks to some shady Dominion manipulating), who better to mediate that tension than the only person to straddle both worlds? The arrival of Worf changed the dynamic of the main cast somewhat, of course… but no more than the introduction of an important minor character like, say, Garak, did. By the sixth season wedding of Worf and Jadzia Dax, it felt like the Klingon had been DS9’s all along, and the Next Gen appearances were just a couple of guest turns.

In the end, the show felt like it had taken us someplace, which is more than most shows of its kind can claim. The principal cast truly felt like a family, which is a feat TNG never entirely pulled off without a hitch. Here’s a perfect example: Next Gen’s finalé wraps up with Picard finally taking a seat at the senior staff’s regular poker game. Deep Space Nine’s finalé, on the other hand, ends with Sisko being pulled into the wormhole (semi?)permanently, and the sadness that comes as the crew must deal with his absence. That one series is punctuated by its patriarch finally coming out of his shell for the first time, while the other leaves us feeling like the family has just lost its beloved father says a great deal about both shows.

So many moments stick out over the course of this series: Kira’s increasingly frustrated glances at herself in the mirror each morning as she faces a new day under Dominion occupation. The political intrigue of Garak and the various cloak-and-dagger schemes connected to him (best played out in the season three two-parters in which the Obsidian Order and the Romulan Tal Shiar join forces in an attempt to wipe out the Dominion). The season 3 closer, The Adversary. The season 4 closer in which the Klingon high chancellor is revealed to be a changeling, and the resulting paranoia in season 5 as we wonder if anyone is who they appear to be. Tribbles. The exhilarating six (!) part season opener to season 6, in which the deposed Federation triumphantly reclaims their station from the Cardassian-Dominion alliance. The wedding of Dax and Worf. The growing friendship between O’Brien and Bashir. The very personal, yet epic, opening to season 7, as Sisko truly comes into his own as The Emissary. The creepy alliance between Gul Dukat and Kai Winn. And the amazing multi-part buildup to the finalé, in which all the major plot threads are expertly woven into the finest tapestry I’ve ever seen.

Granted, there were some occasional missteps. These came, most notably, in seasons 6 and 7 as we were treated to a flurry of episodes featuring one familiar cast member and an assortment of outsiders. There was also the sudden revelation that Bashir was genetically engineered, which quickly became both a punchline and a crutch for a character who was already sufficiently well-rounded, in my opinion. Then there was Vic Fontaine, the interesting, self-aware holosuite character who overstayed his welcome by the closing moments of season 7. The mirror universe and the whimsical Ferengi-centric episodes were similarly interesting concepts that were just done a few too many times. And, Trials and Tribble-ations notwithstanding, time travel episodes almost universally sucked the show down. The first episode I actually saw of the show was “Past Tense,” which was an awful, preachy “go back and change earth’s barbaric past” episode. It took me years before I gave DS9 another chance, and “Past Tense” still stands as my least favorite of the series. Oh, and don’t even talk to me about Kira’s time traveling back to see (and interact with) her mother. The information we got and the character development were important… but not at the expense of all the established “don’t interfere with the timeline” scolding we’ve heard over the years.

In the end, though, Deep Space Nine is far more than the sum of its parts. It’s hard for me to tell if anyone else might like it, because my passion springs from such a personal place. Here we have a drama grounded in what I know best — geeky Star Trek lore — and addressing so many issues relevant to me and my life. DS9 for me is that greatest of artistic endeavors — the work that seems written specifically for Ron ‘AAlgar’ Watt.

This is the show that Penn and Teller were born to make. They have always billed themselves as skeptics — performing magic tricks for the sake of debunking illusionists who take themselves far too seriously.

Now they’ve turned their skeptical eyes away from the narrow community of magic and out to the world-at-large. The first season, now out on DVD, covers topics ranging from holistic medicine to creationism to bottled water. It can be a bit one-way at times, but what it lacks in objectivity it makes up for in comedic chutzpah. For instance, a particularly quacky chiropractor itching to get his hands on an ususpecting infant is referred to as a “baby twisting motherfucker.” (Ah, the luxury of airing one’s show on pay cable.)

And then there’s the water experiment. Patrons of a fancy restaurant are given water straight out of a garden hose in fancy bottles, served up with ridiculous explanations regarding its origins. As you might expect, they completely buy into the scam. The best part, though, is when we cut away to the waiter filling the bottles. The shots are in stark black and white, and the waiter (probably just an actor) is cackling madly as he does his dirty work.

If nothing else, Penn and Teller aren’t so much pushing an agenda as they are trying to convey to us how important it is to retain an open mind and a sense of humor about everything. I didn’t need to be taught that necessarily, but Bullshit! is a pleasant reminder.