Blood Ties

I watched the fun two-part pilot of this show back in August, and caught a couple eps after that. For Halloween, I watched a few episodes on my PVR and remembered how much I enjoy this show.

The set-up is detective show. Vicki Nelson (Christina Cox ) works cases with and in conflict with her ex-partner on the police force, Mike (Dylan Neal), who is also an ex-lover.

Vicki's assistant Coreen, was her first supernatural-case client - her boyfriend was killed by a vampire/demon. At first Vicki is tough to convince, but by the end of the pilot, she has encountered dark supernatural forces first-hand, including being branded by the demon herself. And she has made a new partner in Henry, a 350-year old vampire investigating the murder himself to keep dark forces at bay.



The production values are decent for scifi, and very importantly both Cox and Schmid are hot hot hot. (sorry Dylan -- on a supernatural show, you're vanilla. Which is how Vicki feels too I think - once you've tasted the kink, it's tough to go back...). The chemistry between them is hot. The first time we see Henry, he's in bed, using his vampire ways for mutual sexual satisfaction. Later, Vicki lets him suck her blood to save his life, and they are bound together. Henry is very much the ladies' man, but always puts his woman of the week aside to help Vicki when she calls. Meanwhile Mike is super-jealous and over the course of the first season, learns the truth about who Henry is, which increases their mutual distrust.

The competitive sparks between Mike and Henry over Vicki, which might on another show feel silly, are fun to watch, because Vicki truly is shifting her alliance, and she's not an airhead. She is a tough fighter and can kick butt without Mike or Henry's help. Together, Vicki and Henry are a formidable team. One personal reason I like Vicki is she's practically blind without her glasses (though the writers forget this occasionally). I'm not positive, but I think her eye condition is why Henry can't mesmerize her with his vampire eyes. Or maybe it's her strong mental powers.

Season two is showing on Lifetime, where you can supposedly watch recent eps. But I can't get it to load - probably because I'm in Canada, and you've got to watch out for those tricky Canadians. Ditto iTunes. Space is also showing season one on Friday nights. Canucks can catch the show on CityTV Sunday nights in East/Central, Wed for Pacific and Thursdays Mountain. Some people wonder why it's hard to find a Canadian audience. Others wonder how the Canadian audience even finds the shows.

You can learn more about the show and keep an eye on where to find it at writer Dennis McGrath's blog.

Based on books by Tanya Huff.

Women's Murder Club

Checking out this show was clearly in my purview! The title made me think these would be amateur detectives, but the show is actually about a group of three friends who happen to be a police detective, medical examiner and deputy DA. Joining them is an ambitious reporter.

Detective Lindsay Boxer is an appealing enough character, played by Law & Order's Angie Harmon. The journalist, Cindy Thomas, is self-proclaimed remarkably smart. The women's friendship is clearly the oil to keep the train of the show running, but what is the deputy DA Jill Bernhardt doing showing up at crime scenes? To me it would be more interesting if we saw each woman handling her area of expertise.

The pilot dwells on the love lives of Lindsay and Jill The latter is choosing between the safe guy and the bad boy, but Lindsay hasn't slept with anyone for the two years since her divorce, which was purportedly caused by her obsession with work.

This is the dark undercurrent of the pilot: that women who work too hard end up alone and eventually -- like the pilot's victim of the week -- dead. The medical examiner, Claire Washburn, who has a stable home life with husband and kids, warns: "You put your head down, you get lost in your career, and you wake up 10 years later and realize your job doesn't hug back."

More disturbingly, there's a freakish moment when Lindsay decides that a stalker is an appropriate boyfriend-substitute. And the murderer turns out to be a jealous wife.

But the women definitely get to do all the heavy lifting of investigating and solving the crimes, and tracking down suspects. At one point, Lindsay points a gun at guy she's chasing but doesn't shoot. But she takes him down later: "You're under arrest for pissing me off."

Their bosses are men, though, including Lindsay's ex-husband Tom, who is appointed Lieutenant in the pilot.
The show contains some graphic violence, which I imagine is supposed to add edge. The pilot ends with a set-up for larger arc: "This time we'll stop him."

The books the show is based on are by James Patterson, but the only writers listed on IMDB are women: Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain, both of Angel and The Shield), who are also exec-producing.

Pushing Daisies

I'll admit my impressions of this show are colored by the fact that I had such different expectations for it when I heard it described. If you haven't heard, it's about a guy (Ned) who can bring people (and animals) back from the dead by touching them. But if he touches them again, they "re-die". He brings his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte, aka "Chuck", back from the dead, and now can never touch her again.

So I thought it would be dark and painful (with the theme of Wanting the Thing you can Never Have). But right from the start, I felt trapped in a 1970s Disney movie. Definitely going for the Tim Burton effect. If that's not Elfman on the synth, he should sue. (and I think the theme is Quirky People Can Solve Crimes Too)

Charlotte is scatter-brained, super-cutesy, and for me, super-annoying. In episode two, she complains at one point, "I'm useless." Ned, who loves her, disagrees, but I don't have his ulterior motive or scruples. Oh wait, she had one moment of helpfulness this episode where she pickpockets a security pass.

What would have been cool is if she’d lived up to the name “Chuck” and since Ned knew her as a kid, she'd become a bisexual plumber. Then they could have threesomes with chicks and resolve their sexual frustration that way. As it stands, the poor detective they solve murders with, Emerson, had to be the hug-between in the first episode. The second episode introduced plastic and rubber as ways for them to touch, so perhaps it can get a little kinky after all...

Except she says things like, "That's so neat". "That's so cute." I want to hit her a lot.

And I WILL smack the omnipresent narrator if he ever tries to dictate my life. The narration is such a cheap device, however many clever turns of phrase are used within. We see the golden monkeys. Narrator: "The monkeys were golden". Oi. I was so praying that the first episode was the last one they'd use him in, but no, he's back in ep 2, along with flashback to his childhood, which I also was hoping we'd see the last of. But sigh, not to be.

Nails on chalk board. Don't think I can watch another ep.

Bones Season Premiere

Caught the Bones season premiere last night. (Tuesday nights, Fox; Wednesday nights, Global)

As mentioned, I hadn't actually watched this show before, but had heard quite good things.

I'm an instant fan. Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan is freaking awesome. The smartest woman I've ever seen on TV. And hyper and driven and committed. Although of course she has been made emotionally stunted to balance it all out. In fact, I would place her and one of the other characters, Zack, on the Asperger scale. Despite this, she does share chemistry with a male FBI agent Booth, who refuses to use the technical jargon that gushes non-stop from the mouths of every other character. I learned some new vocabulary!

What makes the show even more appealing to me, is that every other woman on the show is also distinctively strong. Angela, another forensic expert, is the emotional counter-balance to Bones. Dr. Saroyan, the coronoer, appears to be a voice of reason. And Caroline Julian, a prosecutor, is tough-as-nails and no-nonsense.

Yes the premise is creepy (she's an anthropologist who specializes in forensics), and the season has been set up to follow a cannibal killer, but I didn't get that squicky feeling I get in my stomach at CSI or Cold Squad. The creators make a choice not to "flash back" to bloody crime scenes, and they suckered me in with hints of the Illuminati.

Clearly I'll need to go back and watch Seasons One and Two.

Fave line:
Julia to Brennan: "Sweetie, this is not one of those things where you try to keep a secret and I ferret out the truth. This is where I tell you something that's true, so you can catch up to your own reality."