The timing could not have been better, as the three foxy crime fighters (esp the agonizingly beautiful Jaclyn Smith) were the perfect conductresses for the puberty train my friends and I were embarking upon.  Every Wednesday at 9 p.m. was a one-hour blur of the heroines in bikinis, hot pants, tight halter tops and any other revealing get-up necessary to solve the case.  Plus at least one of the women would be tied up, so our prepubescent minds got a much-needed tutorial in bondage fetish.  In short, the show provided jet fuel to the wet-dream rockets of our young minds.

But I don’t think I ever quite got what Charlie’s Angels meant to women until over a quarter-century later when I took a date to see Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, the second feature starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu as the titular detectives.  My companion rhapsodized at length how while growing up, the three original gorgeous gumshoes were her role-models.  Jill (Farrah Fawcett), Sabrina (Kate Jackson) and Kelly (the aforementioned Smith) got to hang out in a well-appointed house, don hot clothes, drive sweet cars (well, new Mustangs anyway) and, when their unseen surrogate father Charlie (John Forsythe) and his husky eunuch Bosley (David Doyle) assigned them a case, got to kick ass on a succession of some of the luckiest stuntmen in history.  Where I tuned in just to ogle the fine flesh on display, girls and young women were watching because, at last, they had their fantasy selves.  What James Bond was for me and lots of other boys, Jill, Kelly and Sabrina were for the young ladies.

There had been other female PI’s on TV.  In 1965, Anne Francis portrayed gadget-wielding, ocelot-loving Honey West, and both Get Christie Love (starring Teresa Graves) and Police Woman (starring Angie Dickinson) debuted in ’74.  What made Charlie’s Angels different was the group angle.  While men fantasize at being steely bad ass loners, women tend to fantasize about doing things in groups.  (Sex In the City, anyone?  Or Bridesmaids?)  Although mega-producer and vulgarian extraordinaire Aaron Spelling’s name is most frequently associated with Charlie’s Angels, the show was actually created by the well-regarded team of Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts.  They had previously created Mannix, hands-down the best private eye series ever, so they knew their onions.  Although Goff and Roberts were men in their sixties they realized a trio of sexy but highly capable sleuths would make for a highly original dynamic, attracting both a male and female audience albeit for different reasons.  And so a successful franchise was born, the original series lasting through five seasons, six angels (Fawcett would leave after the first season, replaced by Cheryl Ladd, and after a well-publicized falling out, Jackson would leave after the third season, replaced first by Shelley Hack and then Tanya Roberts), and the two McG-directed, Barrymore-produced features.

Barrymore also produces the reincarnated Charlie’s Angels which debuts this season on ABC.  However, unlike the movies, which featured some campy humor and surprisingly sharp action sequences (particularly in the underrated second installment), the new series is an utter drag.  I knew it would be a long hour when the pilot opened not on the angels’ past stomping ground of L.A., but on the neon nightscape of South Beach.  C’mon, TV, the whole Miami thing is so played out.  Anyone who’s ever been there knows as soon as you’re two blocks from the oceanfront the place becomes Detroit, only with more Cubans.  Not helping is all the split-screen in a cliché attempt to show off the glitz and second-hand sophistication of pretty extras amid poolside bars and decadent late night soirees.

We quickly meet our three ’11 model angels: Abby (Rachael Taylor), tarnished rich girl turned pickpocket/jewel thief/chick who scales walls a lot; Kate (Annie Illonzeh), yet another cop wrongly charged with corruption (although in the prologue she appears to take dirty money, I guaran-damn-tee you the network doesn’t have the guts to make her truly corrupt and it will be a frame-up); and Gloria (Nadine Velazquez), an ex-Marine accused of war crimes.  If you’ve seen any promos for the show, then you know not to get too attached to Gloria.  No sooner do the gals rescue a kidnapped teen from human traffickers than Gloria and her glorious vintage muscle car get blown up.

Cue the remaining two woman slapping mags into their cute mini-Glocks and threatening to go all Salt on the badguys, but Charlie (an incredibly wasted Victor Garber) cautions the team against seeking vengeance.  At this point, I should mention Bosley.  No longer a genial, middle-aged enabler of rich men and kept women, he’s now a ripped Latino computer whiz/martial artist played by a varnished cedar plank called John Rodriguez.  I guess he’s there for “balance,” i.e. the female audience can drink in this tall cocktail of a man while the male audience can drool over the women.  This only demonstrates how clueless the new series is, as the whole appeal of the original show was the angels solving mysteries and kicking butt without a guy’s help.  Now they have a dude tagging along and doing all the cool stuff that was previously the exclusive purview of our three heroines.  It’s like rebooting Batman and making Alfred the butler a 20-something black belt who’s the equal of the caped crusader.  (Sorry if I geeked out there.  It happens, esp when Batman is concerned.)

Tracking Gloria’s killer and car-blower-upper, the Angels come upon Eve (Minka Kelly, seriously slumming since Friday Night Lights), a car thief and master of all things automotive, who was Gloria’s best friend and is now on the vengeance wagon herself.  After a quick bit of slapping and hair-pullery masquerading as krav maga, Eve proves herself as tough as she is thin and that’s qualification enough to don the sheer sundress that passes as a uniform for Townshend Investigations.  She gets captured by the big bad human trafficker who traumatized her as a kid in South America (don’t ask), but she’s rescued by the other angels and shows off those peerless driving skills we’ve been hearing so much about by hopping in a 500-horsepower Corvette Z06 to give chase…while the villain makes his escape on foot.  Yeah, you read that right.  Anyway, Eve slams the sports car into the baddie and makes the world safe for pouty waifs in belly shirts everywhere.

This is just weak tea no matter how much visual sugar and lemon you dump in.  Only Kelly exudes any trace of sexuality, but her character is just so much lovely crepe paper.  With some real talent behind the scenes, ABC could have reinvigorated the franchise and created role-models for another generation.  Think what Joss Whedon or J.J. Abrams could’ve done with this.  Instead, the new Charlie’s Angels is a shiny new car with a classic moniker but no horsepower under the hood.

Sucker Punch is the story of Baby Doll (we hear her called nothing else), an orphan committed to an insane asylum after a tragedy involving her little sister and an abusive stepfather.  Dominating the ward is a skeevy orderly named Blue (Oscar Isaac) and a progressive therapist, Dr. Gorski (Carla Gugino, salivating all over that Polish accent).  In exchange for a payoff from Baby Doll’s stepdad, Blue plans to have the new patient labotomized in five days time.  But we know the diminutive blonde is more formidable than she looks, and so she plots escape with four other inmates; the small but tough Rocket (Jena Malone), Rocket’s protective older sister Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), willing but scared Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and the above mentioned Amber.  To bust out they need to obtain a map, a key, a knife, and a way to make fire.  It’s these missions to obtain said items that make up the bulk of the film’s epic action scenes, as we see them played out in Baby Doll’s considerable imagination.  Dr. Gorski has the women use interpretive dance as therapy and Baby Doll’s movements are apparently so entrancing, they divert attention while the other girls pull off these jobs.  It’s a good choice for Snyder to never show us Baby Doll’s dance, as that’s when she slips into a dream state where she and her crew encounter zombie stormtroopers, samurai robots, and fire breathing dragons.  (Note that the women never go up against actual human adversaries, except in a couple of key scenes.)

Plotwise, there’s nothing new here.  Anyone who’s seen The Singing Detective, Brazil, Shutter Island, Inception and scads of lesser mental and/or dream escape films knows how these stories generally play out.  Chief among the legion of script issues is the fact we never know enough about these women to really care about their fates either in the institution or Baby Doll’s fantasies.  Other than our protagonist, we never learn why any of these girls are committed as they’re all seemingly rational, healthy people of adult age.  From the set design and wardrobe it appears the film is set in some sort of alterna-early 60’s, where the cars are always black and the skies are always forboding, but our heroic quintet look very contemporary and their accessory-bedecked automatic weoponry would be considered cutting edge by Navy SEAL’s.

Clearly, Snyder loves the idea of mashing up action staples and hardware like samurai swords vs. undead stormtroops, B-25 Liberators vs. flying monsters, and Vietnam Hueys vs. bullet trains.  Problem is, after the bravura main course of the trench raid, everything that follows is a bit of an anti-climax.  By the time the ladies hack ‘n slash ‘n shoot their way through a trainload of rather dull robots, the narrative energy has long since left the station.

Then the film gets DARK and there are a couple of story choices that don’t make a lick of sense, but damn if Snyder doesn’t have integrity.  Obviously, hot babes in short skirts mowing down orcs is the picture’s selling point, but make no mistake, this is not a typical pre-summer action flick.  Early on, a myserious sensei (the always welcome Scott Glenn) tells Baby Doll the last item she needs for her escape is a mystery, but it will result in both sacrifice and triumph.  And so there’s a palpable sadness and sense of accomplishment at the climax that even the script’s more significant errors cannot entirely obscure.  (However, make sure you rush for the exits before Carla Gugino and Oscar Isaac’s horrific cover of “Love Is the Drug.”)

Snyder’s best film remains his debut, 2004’s remake of Dawn of the Dead, with ‘07’s 300 a pulpy guilty pleasure and ‘09’s Watchmen a maddening but intensely watchable disappointment.  Sucker Punch is Snyder’s first attempt to tell an original story (co-written with second-unit director Steven Shibuya) and despite his not inconsiderable misteps, he’s clearly making efforts – real efforts – to do something significant with action spectacle.  I’m not sure his upcoming reboot of Superman is going to be the answer, but I know this; I’m buying a ticket.

Of course, I can see why you all want more comments.  This show truly has turned around, and just in time after the dream-crushing ordeal that was Survivor: Nicaragua.  Just think, a few short months ago we were having to endure Fabio and Sash and some winged creature that escaped from hell called NaOnka.  So this season couldn’t help but be an improvement.

But let’s not get too carried away.  After all, this has yet to prove itself a classic season.  For that, you need a clearly defined villain, and we lost that with Russell’s swift departure.  You also need rival strategists outhinking and outplaying each other at every turn, but other than some half-hearted attempts by tribal goats Phil and Stephanie, that hasn’t really been the case either.  Basically, you have your Zapatera Six led by…Mike?  Steve?  Ralph?  Guess it doesn’t matter at this stage in the game.  And on Ometepe, it’s the Boston Rob show, as it always is when he’s brought back for a season.

Is Rob playing a great game, or is he just lucky to have landed on the tribe that has the most starstruck castaways?  I’d say it’s the former – Rob is the rare repeat player who learns from his past seasons – but there’s no denying he’s benefitted from the fawning of Ashley, Grant and Natalie.  As long as they stay loyal, he has little to fear from discontent Andrea and Very Special Agent Phil.  In fact, Rob’s acolytes may as well just hand him the million dollars now because they clearly have no strategy beyond following his every order.  Season highlight:  Rob deciding they need a day at the beach, so he can search for the Immunity Idol in private.  And of course they don’t question it.  Then again, if the fourth time’s the charm and Rob finally does win the season, it’s not like he hasn’t been earning it.  I say more power to him.

But you don’t wanna hear me praise Rob.  You wanna hear me light into Very Special Agent Phil.  Well, jeez, where to start?  The pink speedo, with his junk hanging out?  The constant bouts of non-linear verbal diarrhea?  The use of a six-foor spear to hunt crabs the size of a quarter?  To quote Community’s Jeff Winger, “We know he exhibits nay. Flaunts proudly. Obvious symptoms of over a half a dozen disorders you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy’s pets.”  (You really should be watching that show, btw.)  Yes, Phil is Philarious.  But damn if I don’t want him to stay ‘til the end.  I find his babbling rants fascinating, especially when he borders on making sense.  His overture to fellow outcast Andrea is good game playing, and there’s some smart strategy in planning ahead in the event her alliance partner Matt returns from Redemption Island.  Three is the magic number in this game, and should they get together Rob may have a problem.

Over on Zapatera, there hasn’t been much drama since they threw a challenge to ax Russell.  I don’t care what anyone says, including Probst in his precious little blog.  That was a smart move.  Yeah, I normally hate when teams intentionally lose, but this was a special circumstance.  Russell was a morale drain of the first order.  Worse, he learned absolutely nothing from his two previous seasons and looked especially sad and foolish looking for that idol Ralph, the hirsute hillbilly savant, found earlier without benefit of clues.   After losing to Matt at Redemption Island, he went out crying like a little bitch troll, AND I LOVED IT.  I wanted to lick the tears from his grizzled cheeks.  I bet they tasted like salty champagne.  His departure left henchwomen Krista and Stephanie on the outs with the rest of the tribe, and while I wasn’t sorry to see the former get voted out (did we ever hear her speak until this most recent episode?), I’ve been hoping Stephanie might bust out a few moves to capitalize on the tensions bubbling just below the surface of the Zapatera Six.  For one, it would wake things up on the show, and two, it would keep Stephanie around longer and she’s growing on me.  Her blatant offer to Rob and Grant to switch tribes post-merge was a sound idea, but her passivity at camp after her team lost the Immunity Challenge was baffling.  That’s when she should’ve been hustling her sweet, pert ass off.  Sidenote:  love her skort.  (Yes, I had to look up what that delightful outfit is called.)  Another sidenote:  this season has featured some excellent eye candy, including pouty Andrea and just-this-side-of-jailbait hot Natalie, who was only 18 when the season was shot.  Yes, 18.  But the Survivor oggle-cam insists that I drink in her every contour whenever she bathes or suns herself, and so I do as ordered.  Thank you, Mark Burnett.

Now let’s get to the big change up for this season, a little thing called Redemption Island.  After five eps, we finally see how this works and I have to say the jury is still out.  Ideally, it’s kind of cool that a voted out castaway is given a shot at fighting their way back into the game, wrecking vengeance on those who wronged them, and possibly even winning.  But the promos made it look like the voted out survivors would be engaged in physically punishing Parris Island-style duels.  Instead, Redemption Arena may as well be called Puzzle Palace, ‘cause that’s all the challenges have been; races as to who can assemble something the quickest.  Not exactly the Thunderdome death matches we were hyped.  Plus, Russell aside, there’s no one so far whose possible return really seems to be a game changer.  Alright, Matt may make some trouble for Rob but that’s only if Andrea and Phil are still there if/when he returns.  And does anyone believe a Krista komeback is honestly gonna cause any of her old tribemates to quake in their water-logged sneakers?  I want to see Redemption Island become more brutal and scary.  I want the castaways to absolutely dread the prospect of going there.  And I want the two witnesses chosen from each tribe to return with haunted, glazed looks, like soldiers who have seen things those of us back home would never even imagine.  In short, I want HORROR.

And more shots of Stephanie’s skort.

Next time on TV Chile, the deep fried deliciousness of downhome crimefighting otherwise known as Justified.  Eat up!

Same with Russell Hantz.  I mean, I was one of this guy’s biggest fans.  Okay, okay, I was like his only fan.  Nevertheless, I wasn’t clamoring for his return.  He had two back to back seasons, played two extraordinary games, and came close to winning both times.  But enough already.  We’ve all seen the poison gnome and his fedora of evil.  Basta!

But apparently Mark Burnett feels otherwise.  He and CBS believe you can never have too much of a good thing, hence CSI, Big Bang Theory and How I Married Your Mother will be renewed until the sun burns out, and Charlie Sheen will always have a soundstage to freebase on.  And Survivor will keep bringing back Boston Rob and Russell until one of them wins and/or they finally kiss.

Redemption may be what the producers want this season’s voted off castaways to achieve, but let’s be real.  After the soul sucking horror that was last fall’s Survivor: Nicaragua, it’s the damn show itself that needs to be redeemed.  And aside from my problem with Rob and Russell’s return, the premiere actually gives us reason to hope.

And that’s because it’s got a full-force, off-his-meds, delusional wingnut named Phillip Shephard, but I’m calling Very Special Agent.  Oh, he’s special alright.  Just check the DSM-IV if you don’t believe me.  And he was once a “federal agent,” but shhh…don’t tell anyone, because it’s a secret.  Except from the whole team who he spills it to after they rigorously don’t question him at all.  Hmm, wonder which branch of our nation’s security services he was in.  CIA?  FBI?  Homeland Security?  I like to think he was in SHIELD, kicking it with Iron Man and Nick Fury.  And he’d still be out saving the free world today if it wasn’t for some fiendish mind ray device that scrambled his circuits and turned him into the borderline Asperger’s case who now shouts at his team mates when not giving them the spooky eye.  It’s as if Mark Burnett told his casting people, “I want the tragi-comic self-mythologizing of Coach in the body of Gravedigger James.”  And the casting folks replied, “The requisite insane person combined with the requisite bald black guy?  Funny you should ask, ‘cause look who just got released from Camarillo this morning…”

Very Special Agent is approached by a rather strident ‘n stringy law student named Kristina Kell, who’s equally self-impressed and terrible at keeping secrets.  No sooner does she find the Immunity Idol than she tells Francesca Hogi and Very Special Agent, because it’s killing her not to blab.  Kristina thinks she can use it to blindside Boston Rob (they’re all on the Ometepe tribe), and it’s not a bad plan, ‘cause Rob is already charming/ordering the younger girls and boys in a way that can only be described as Manson-ish.  And I gotta say here, I love Francesca.  An attorney from D.C., she’s hella smart with hilarious asides and sarcastic eyerolls, especially when Very Special Agent starts in with the crazy.  Francesca scores the biggest laugh of the ep when after confiding to us what a jackass that man is, she adds, “Did I mention he’s in my alliance?”

Anyway, the whole thing goes to hell when Very Special Agent decides not to follow the plan, but instead listen to the messages from Jupiter that he clearly now takes orders from.  No sooner does our first tribal council begin than he calls out Kristina and “Fran-ches-QUA” and their plot.  The girls have no choice but to weakly deny – what else are they gonna do – but it’s too late.  Even Rob is stunned how easy these “amateurs” are making this for him, and offers Kristina a deal:  “Give me the idol and you won’t get voted out tonight.”  She refuses, and gets three votes, while Very Special Agent gets two from his former short-lived alliance partners.  But canny Rob ordered the Mariano Family to split their votes so Francesca gets the remaining ballots and that sends her to this show’s newest gimmick, er, I mean exciting development, Redemption Island.  Oooo….  Here, Francesca will have to crack wise and eyeroll to her own self while braving the elements alone, until another voted off castaway joins her.  There they will duel until, theoretically, a previously voted-out castaway returns to the game to reap bloody vengeance.

In order to get you properly stoked, each commercial break begins with Jeff Probst looking back at past “favorite” survivors being voted out and wistfully wondering if their skills would’ve allowed them to best Redemption Island and return as conquering avengers.  Yeah, I’m sure had Erik come back he would’ve really given Parvati some sleepless nights.  And we get it, Jeff, you really, really liked Jane.  But she’s gone, back to the hills and cooking meth where she belongs.  Just leave it.  Anyway, remember how excited this show was about Exile Island and The Medallion of Power?  Uh-huh.

Over on the rival Zapatera tribe, the only castaway to get any major face time is waitress Stephanie Valencia, and that’s ‘cause Russell picks her as his first ally/victim.  The behatted one tells the tribe his days of screwing everyone over are through, and now he wants to lead a team to victory.  Whatev.  If we have to have Russell back for a third time in 18 months, then I want to see him in pure pitbull mode.  Yeah, he took Natalie and Parvati to the end…but remember what he did to everyone else in those alliances.  Stephanie, you can flatter yourself all you want, but I like to think homeboy is already fitting you for a toetag.  There are also some other hot but sort of infantile girls and some generically good looking but rather dull younger guys, as well as another token redneck and I think I spotted a tall old man looming in the background.

As for the rest of the show, it wasn’t bad.  The direction’s slick as usual, and we’re still in Nicaragua so the scenery’s the same as last year and it really pops in HD.  The single challenge of the episode, a punishing race/puzzle dealie, looked suitably grueling.  And Probst placidly sitting on the back tailgate of the chopper before it barrel rolled?  Without even losing his hat?  Sure, why not.

I’ll be checking back in on the season now and again, but I hazzard to say we’re off to a decent start.  By the way, I’m still taking submissions for a readers choice review.  Eat up!

Creator Adam Reed set out to fuse the sophisticated cool of classic James Bond with the anarchic disfunctional farce of Arrested Development and the results are thus: Archer (H. Jon Benjamin), a stunningly rude, narcissistic twit who bears a striking resemblance to 60’s era Sean Connery, uses his dangerous spy assignments as an excuse to get drunk, get high and get laid, all on the dime of his employer, the super secret agency known as ISIS. Ruled with a malevolent hand by Archer’s alcoholic mother, Mallory (Jessica Walter), ISIS is a low-rent CIA which usually finds itself in competition with rival spy agencies ODIN and the KGB. Because Archer himself has a world class mother complex, vomiting every time her sexuality is mentioned, the missions she send him on only serve to underline the considerable tension between them.

ISIS is also staffed by Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler), a voluptuous field agent who also happens to be Archer’s ex, and who is usually offended and nauseated by his exploits…except for the rare times she still finds him hot. That’s when Archer taunts her, a la Kenny Loggins, as being in the “danjah zone!” Lana is currently dating Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell), the uptight, buttoned-down ISIS comptroller who may be a clingy, whiny half-man, but is also unusually well-endowed, and not quite as ethical as he likes to think. After all, he’s twice had sad, choking sex with demented secretary Cheryl/Carol/Cristal (Judy Greer), who regularly throws herself at any guy in arm’s reach when not exchanging cruel taunts with depressed, overweight HR rep Pam (Amber Nash). And then there’s gadget man Dr. Krieger (Lucky Yates), a full-on psychopath given to recording bum fights and building a pleasure ‘bot called “Fister Roboto.” Did I mention this is not Muppet Babies?

So the ISIS team is not exactly a likeable bunch. In fact, they’re all selfish, brutal, lying misanthropes who just happen to save the world ‘cause they’re too bored to do anything else. In my favorite episode, “Diversity Hire,” Mallory brings aboard African-American Jewish agent Conway Stern (“He’s a diversity double-whammy!”) solely to seduce him, not bothering to check that he has no references or even verifiable background, and is in fact a lethal enemy agent. Archer and Lana manage to stop Conway’s plot to steal a sub tracking device only because 1) Archer venomously resents any man his mother is attracted to, and 2) Lana is jealous there may be an agent even more competent than herself. Saving the day is always incidental to their own epic pettiness.

In addition to the lethally sharp writing, the artwork is nothing short of stunning. Whether its Archer’s tailored wardrobe and vintage muscle cars, Lana’s Tec-9 machine pistol, or Mallory’s South Beach condo, every detail is rendered with obsessive clarity that brings this world of spy vs. spy vs. coworker vs. family to vivid life. This gives the already brilliant and disturbing dialog something solid to bounce off, best demonstrated in last season’s biggest action setpiece, a no-holds barred shootout on an arms merchant’s mega yacht, which serves merely as background to Archer and Lana’s bickering. When both reach for the same grenade, their hands touch. The two agents look at each other…

Sterling: (Looking into Lana’s eyes) Oh my god they’re green, like emeralds. How did I never see that? Lana, your eyes are amazing.

Lana: (Sighs, leans in to kiss) Archer.

Sterling: I mean, not compared to your t*ts but –

Lana promptly shoots him in the foot.

History Channel’s Top Gear USA has no Jeremy Clarkson.  Instead, it has rally driver Tanner Foust, comic Adam Ferrara, and…Rutledge Wood, whose qualifications I’ve still yet to determine.  He’s tall, bearded and Southern, so maybe that’s all the qualifications History Channel needed.  Of the three, Foust is clearly the most car savvy and the best driver.  He’s not much on personality (he never hosts the celebrity interview/test lap segments) but how many TV hosts can coach a blind man to win a drifting contest?  I remember Adam Ferrara from too many late-90’s Comedy Central standup specials, and he’s just as unfunny now as he was when making Monica Lewinsky jokes at Caroline’s.  He clearly knows nothing about cars other than the fact they have four wheels and a motor, and even that knowledge seems second hand.  But like Rutledge Wood, he is gregarious and seems relatively comfortable doing the celebrity interviews.  Wood likes to smile, drive fast and remind the audience he’s from south of the Mason Dix, but he has yet to prove he’s in the same driving league as Foust, let alone the hosts of the British show.  Put it this way: his dream car is a Dodge Challenger R/T, which would Jeremy Clarkson would sooner lie down in front of before getting behind the wheel.

Aside from the hosts – and that’s a very big aside – Top Gear USA is pretty much a carbon copy of the orignal.  The show usually opens with a test of a new performance car such as an Aston Martin Vantage or Porsche Panamera, followed by their “unseen” race driver The Stig putting the vehicle through a punishing test lap.  Then comes a long featured segment, such as a race from Miami to Key West between a cigarette boat, a seaplane and a new Lotus, or the hosts putting three old GM cars through a series of grueling tests to determine which one the auto giant should put back into production.  Then there’s the aforementioned celebrity bit, known as Big Star in a Small Car, where someone like Michelle Rodriguez or Bret Michaels tells their favorite car stories before whipping a dinky Suzuki around the test track in a timed lap.  To my surprise, this season’s best guest was Detroit native Kid Rock whose grasp of Motor City lore should make the producers reconsider bringing him back to host if there’s a second season.  Anyway, the American show hews so closely to the British model, the intent is obviously to win over those fervid fans of the original.

But this brings us back to the issue of Jeremy Clarkson and, well, his not being here.  As stated, he is Top Gear.  And no matter how entertaining the Yank version often is – it’s hard to go wrong with fast cars and high speed challenges – it’s just not the same no matter how much they try to make us think it is.  Hell, it even uses the same Allman Brothers tune over the opening.  I’m not NOT recommending it.  I’m just saying don’t expect the original.

As I’ve written earlier, my own affairs are so up in the air I need the damn Hubble scope to see ‘em.  But if time permits, my next review will be of F/X’s brilliant spy comedy Archer.  Eat up!

Human Target is the televised equivalent of Superburger.  Now in its second season, Fox’s action series isn’t going to win any Emmy’s.  Gwyneth Paltrow is never going to guest (thank the lord).  It doesn’t attempt to push boundaries or reinvent the medium or make you a better person just for watching.  It’s pure red meat fried in bacon grease.  If anything, Human Target will make you a worse person for watching.  But it’s so worth it.

The premise is simple enough.  Christopher Chance (Mark Valley) is a former hit man atoning for his past by working as a bodyguard for high risk clients.  Backing him up are Winston (Chi McBride), a former cop who manages their San Francisco office and often acts as the voice of conscience, and Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley), a wiry felon/killer/torturer/computer nerd who has no conscience but acts out of an unwavering loyalty to Chance.  Every week features Chance getting hired to protect a new client and pretty much winging it – he doesn’t do plans – as he makes hash out of the bad guys in a succession of beautifully choreographed fight sequences.  Meanwhile, Winston does his best to keep Chance on the straight and narrow while Guerrero hacks computer files, intimidates people and commits the occasional murder, all for the greater good, of course. 

Couple of things: 

1) The chemistry of Valley, McBride and Haley is superb, with constant needling and back and forth jibes, especially between the morally upright Winston and the morally vacant Guerrero.  Valley plays Chance with just the right amounts of square-jawed toughness and self-aware goofiness.  His character is a tarnished James Bond for rent, who can speak every language on the planet and synthesize lethal gadgets from fire extinguishers and paper clips, yet would just assume kick back with some leftover Chinese food and his dog.  And let me stress again, Guerrero is one cold motherhubbard.  On any other show, he’d be one of the bad guys, and that’s just how Haley plays him.   

2)  Despite all the gorgeous women Chance encounters, none are bimbos.  They’re usually scientists or district attorneys or even fellow ass kickers who need Chance’s help and just as often save him when the situation gets sticky.  My particular favorites last season were Courtney Ford as a flight attendant who may not be all she seems when Chance is protecting a client on a plane, and Leonor Varela as Chance’s mercurial ex-flame who’s now a South American revolutionary.  It’s the show’s way of saying this is a big sandbox and the girls can play in it too. 

Now let’s get to what bugs about Human Target’s second season.  The suits at Fox, who never met a great show they couldn’t meddle with if not outright destroy (call it the Firefly syndrome), decided Human Target needed to add some X chromosomes.  So the season opener gave us Isla Pucci (Indira Varma), a wealthy socialite and former client who is now the agency’s bankroller, and Ames (Janet Montgomery), a young master thief who Guerrero reluctantly takes under his wing (after deciding not to kneecap her).  Varma is a decent actress, I guess, with exotic looks offset by a posh RADA accent, but take a close look at that name:  Pucci.  As in Poochie, the epically awful designed-by-committee cartoon dog forced on Itchy & Scratchy in that Simpsons episode which was all about the idiocy of forcing characters into well-established shows.  As for Montgomery, she may be the best actress in all television history but I’ll never know because Ames is as dull and cliché as they come.  She supposed to be all kinds of sexy and attitudey and  girl powery and whatever else the curse of Katy Perry has wrought upon the earth.  However, Ames joins Cousin Oliver, Scrappy Doo and Dawn Summers as one of the most deathlessly annoying and superfluous characters to ever ruin a show.  First season Guerrero would kill her without hesitation, and pick his teeth with her femur.  Now that great psychotic character has been emasculated, playing babysitter while he should be stapling punks’ eyelids to their forehead.  Meanwhile, Pucci struts around in power suits and heels and is just appalled that Chance and his guys have to play rough with the baddies.  These guys don’t need a mom.  That was Winston’s job anyway.

Nevertheless, I continue to recommend the show.  The banter among the three dudes is still sharp, and the action is intense as ever.  No, it’s not as good as the first season, but it’s still a great cheeseburger of a show.  Come February, we’ll get the filet mignon that is Justified.

1)      Mad Men, AMC

Things were looking up for Don Draper and company; the heady days of 1964-65 were in full swing and the new Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price agency was awash in clients and Clios.  But soon we learned it all meant nothing as Don’s soul was dead, and hookers, a sad trip to L.A., and a river of Canadian Club did little to fill the void.  To save his increasingly troubled agency, Don had to gut it by dropping cigarettes as its chief account (although he still smoked his usual fifty packs a day, ‘cause hey, he’s still Don).  And in a twist that stunned both Don’s coworkers and viewers, our unknowable hero dropped the wise and sexy female doctor he’d been successfully wooing, so he could rashly propose to his young secretary instead.  “I hope she knows you only like the beginning of things,” Hot Doctor warned Don in their breakup phone call, but Mad Men once again knew how to conclude a season that was its most challenging to date.  Special props to Kiernan Shipka, the phenomenal young actress who plays Don’s daughter Sally.  Her growth as a character is nothing short of breathtaking, and show creator Matt Weiner has used her to full potential.

2)      Justified, F/X

At first glance, it looked like Tim Olyphant was just gonna bring his Deadwood persona into modern times; Seth Bullock with a Glock.  But this wry drama, based on the writings of Elmore Leonard, takes Olyphant’s leading man charm (which has never really translated to film) and pours it into a character more likable and more self-aware than Bullock, although just as deadly with a gun.  As Raylen Givens, a U.S. marshal reassigned to rural Kentucky, Olyphant gets to be equal parts bad ass, gallantly romantic, and deadpan hilarious.  Equal kudos to Walton Goggins as his former best friend/current nemesis Boyd Crowder, who’s spiritual reawakening after taking a bullet left Raylen and us guessing until the cap bustin’ finale appropriately titled “Bulletville.”

3)      Community, NBC

While the second season has gone for more experimentation over just being funny, this is still the best written comedy on the air with an ensemble cast only matched by Modern Family and Cougar Town.  In my longform write-up earlier this fall, I neglected to mention Donald Glover’s standout work as ex-jock Troy, so let me do so now.  Clearly his growth as a character is an on-going and surprisingly moving theme of season 2, especially the episode where the study group takes him out for his first drink and he learns how truly miserable they all are.

4)      Archer, F/X

Sterling Archer is a super spy.  He’s got the dark good looks, the tailored suits, a penthouse, and women aplenty.  He routinely saves the free world while dispatching dozens of bad guys, and looks good while doing it.  He’s also the world’s biggest ass, his every utterance dripping with syrupy sarcasm, racism and, misogyny.  Of course, he’s mother obsessed.  Speaking of, it’s his mom who runs ISIS, the extremely dysfunctional spy agency which employs Archer and a host of equally horrible espionage types.  The only animated show on this list, the artwork is a standout.  Every stitch of clothing, every firearm, every classic car, every luxurious apartment, is lovingly drawn down to its smallest detail.  H. Jon Benjamin leads a brilliant cast including Aisha Tyler, Judy Greer and the always great Jessica Walter.  After Community, this is pound for pound the sharpest comedy on the tube.

5)      The Walking Dead, AMC

Zombies have taken over the world, and a handful of survivors depend on each other to survive another day.  That’s all you need to know.  Veteran screenwriter-director Frank Darabont adopts the popular graphic with no small amount of heart or brains.  Speaking of, this is easily the most graphically violent show EVER, rivaling even The Pacific for pure on-screen carnage.  But it earns these visceral moments by letting us get to know the characters and allowing them to earn our sympathies before the “walkers” come a-callin’.  This was the best new drama of the fall season, hands down.

6)      Modern Family, ABC

Still funny as all hell, thanks to an ensemble that’s grown even stronger in its second season. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure if I liked Rico Rodriguez’s work as Manny when the show first started, ‘cause how many precocious sitcom kids do we need?  But damn, that boy knocks it out of the park every ep.  Loved his birthday party episode where he looks at his dull-witted cousin Luke putting straws together to make one big straw.  “Luke,” Manny smiles, “never change.”

7)      Cougar Town, ABC

Okay, where do are all you Modern Family viewers go when this show comes on?  ‘Cause I gotta tell you, you’re missing one hell of a funny follow-up.  Truth be told, there are some weeks where Cougar Town is actually the better of the two.  There, I said it!  Anyway, forget the crummy title (which itself is a joke in the opening credits this season) and just give a chance to Courtney Cox as a high-strung realtor and her razor witted friends who want nothing more out of life than to just drink heroic amounts of wine and snap insults.  Dude, that’s my retirement plan right there.  Seriously, catch this before ABC puts it on hiatus in February.

8)      Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, CBS

Boston Rob…Scerri Jerri…Parvati…Rupert…Coach…Russell.  And all at the top of their form.  A true masters course in how to play this game, the ever-changing machinations and strategies were often things of beauty, none more so than when Parvati simultaneously deployed two Immunity Idols.  Want a hot girl fight?  You’re not gonna do any better than Amanda and DDanielle wrestling for an idol clue.  And for sheer gut busting hilarity, nothing – I mean, nothing -  will ever match JT giving Russell his Immunity Idol, complete with condescending letter on how it should be used.  Oh, just thinking about it makes me hate the draining ordeal of Survivor: Nicaragua even more.

9)      Human Target, Fox

The second season has been weakened by two new worthless chick characters and a network note to ratchet down the body count by, oh, a few dozen.  But those first twelve episodes from last winter/spring were one sustained high of testosterone, feature-level direction and knife sharp writing.  Mark Valley plays bodyguard Christopher Chance as an amiable James Bond for hire, while Jackie Earle Haley’s shadowy Guerrero is both one of the more menacing and amusing characters in all TV.

10)   The Pacific, HBO

As a huge fan of Band of Brothers, this sequel ten part mini-series wasn’t really doing it for me – it all felt too familiar – until episode five when the action shifted to PFC Eugene Sledge, beautifully underplayed by Joseph Mazzello, and the ferocious battle of Peleliu.  This was also where we met Sledge’s comrade in arms, the soulful but intensely messed up Snafu, in an Emmy worthy performance by Rami Malek.  For almost the remainder of the series, Sledge and Snafu were our two guides through a hell even us WWII nerds barely comprehended.   The stunningly recreated battles were as graphic and chaotic as a filmed drama could make them, but what really packed a punch was the final episode, entitled “Home,” where the war’s psychic and spiritual cost finally hit full force.  It was purely devastating television that even outdid Band of Brothers for sheer impact.

1)      Mary Tyler Moore as “Laura Petrie” on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966)

2)      Diana Rigg as “Emma Peel” on The Avengers (1965-1968)

3)      Yvonne Craig as “Batgirl/Barbara Gordon” on Batman (1967-1968)

4)      Jaclyn Smith as “Kelly Garrett” on Charlie’s Angels (1976-1981)

5)      Leah Remini as “Carrie Heffernan” on The King of Queens (1998-2007)

6)      Portia de Rossi as “Lindsay Bluth Funke” on Arrested Development (2003-2006)

7)      Yunjin Kim as “Sun-Hwa Kwon” on Lost (2004-2010)

8)      Christina Hendricks as “Joan Holloway/Joan Harris” on Mad Men (2007-present)

9)      Alison Brie as “Annie Edison” on Community (2009-present)

10)   Aisha Tyler as “Lana Kane” on Archer (2010-present)

I’m sure I’m forgetting some good ones, but that should be enough to get an argument going.