Regular readers (and there are so many) may recall how much I like Cougar Town.  Well, I also reviewed Modern Family about the same time.  The two sit-coms are paired up starting at 9/8c on ABC.

After a couple of weeks of both shows, I’m starting to think Modern Family may actually be the better of the two.

How can I put this?  Oh, I know … I fucking love this show!

Funny thing about the internet (and having a blog no one ever reads) … I can drop the F-bomb whenever I feel like it.  And, guess what?  I really feel like it.  Cougar Town is a great goddam show.  That’s it.  All she wrote.  Don’t miss it.  Ever.

Back in the glory days of Friends, I always like Courtney Cox more than the rest of the female cast.  Jennifer Aniston was, and still is, way too full of herself.  And–Julie Bowen aside–I’m not that into blonds.  So I thought Courtney was just smoking hot.

I still do.  The lady is forty, fantastic, and just funny as hell.  Cougar Town is possibly the perfect vehicle for her.  It’s about being single and forty and, while still gorgeous, being at that point in your life where everything is starting to getting a little looser, a little saggier, and maybe a little scarier.  It’s just real enough to make the outrageous satire totally work.  And Courtney, in the lead role of Jules Cobb simply nails the part.

There is nothing I don’t love about this show.  The cast is as good as it could possibly be, including a number of familiar faces (if not familiar names).  Here “younger co-worker” best friend is played by Busy Phillips.   She’s blonde and busty and she gets some of the best lines.  Like: “Can we stop sprinting now? I feel like my boobs are trying to kill me!”  Christa Miller plays the as old or older neighbor best friend.  If you don’t know why she looks so familiar, Christa was a regular on Scrubs and the Drew Carey Show.  Appropriately, it is the female cast that really carries the show with all the males as comic foils or fodder.

But a bright spot among the male cast is Dan Byrd as Travis, Jules teenage son.  As good as Courtney is as Jules, this guy is maybe even better.  How good does a cast have to be to make us forget that Courtney is, well, Courtney?  Dan Byrd helps that happen, letting us believe that this beautiful lady really is his mom and really does make his life difficult.  He manages it without coming off as spoiled or cruel; he does it with wit, humor, and the occasional, fully justified, angry outburst.

As good as the cast may be, it’s the writing that makes Cougar Town work.  This show could be so cliche.  In fact, it starts that way.  After a wonderful scene of Courtney checking herself out in front of a bathroom mirror, the pilot episode moves to a ball game.  That conversion worried me.  But not for long.  Sure, you know Courtney is going to say something inappropriate and be overheard by exactly the wrong person; that’s hardly a surprise.  It’s what she actually says that made me laugh.  Throughout the show, there is one incident after another of this sort of thing.  Courtney’s reaction each time is just so matter-of-fact.  And pretty damn funny.

The real reason that the show works can be summed up in a single word: fearless.  Courtney’s performance is completely fearless.  She is not above making fun of herself while, at the same time, acknowledging (with a wink and a little flash) that she is still damn hot.  In the opening scene, she is pinching folds of her skin and getting disgusted at the result.  A few scenes later, she flashes a kid riding by on a bicycle just to prove a point.  Luckily, we also get the point.  The writers are not afraid of “going there” either.  They get there with humor and just the right amount of sexy to make it all believable.

Which is why I believe ABC may have a real hit here.  So here’s hoping we get to stay in Cougar Town for a long, long time.

Cougar Town airs Wednesdays on ABC at 9:30/8:30c

Midway through its second season on HBO, TrueBlood may just be the first pay-cable series to really take up the reigns of major hits like the Sapranos and Deadwood (no offense to Dexter and Weeds).  Sunday night is appointment viewing once more.  Thank you HBO!

I’m not real sure about this whole “split season” thing that the cable networks like to pull.  Sci-Fi did it with Galactica and we’re still waiting … and waiting … for the final season to play out.  Monday night, The Closer came to a close but it was only a “mid-season” finale.  Mid-season or not, that was one hell of a finale.

Brenda (Kira Sedgewick) was her usual half-crazed yet brilliant self, managing to get shot at after getting almost blown up at least once.  The case was a particularly nasty one (specially if you happen to live in Utah anywhere near Trolly Square).  As per usual, the crime gets solved by a combination of solid investigative work and stumbling upon that final piece of the puzzle.  Monk does this too, as does House and many others.  They solve the mystery with what I like to call the “incidental moment of insight” or IMI if you will.  Someone says something completely unrelated to the issue at hand which gives the main character that IMI moment.  This time it was not something said, but rather a map Brenda just happens to notice at just the right moment.

But that’s the real brilliance of The Closer.  You don’t care how the mystery is solved because you know it always will be.  It’s all the rest of it that makes us want to watch.  Like the entire team throwing Brenda over their collective shoulders to hustle her out of the vicinity of possible bombing.  Sarah Palin would call that moment sexist … I call it hilarious.

What really makes this series a joy to watch isn’t the mostly no-brainer cases; it’s the rest of the cast.  Their funny moments and their painful ones.  Their individual quirks and their often inapropriate responses to the most awful of situations.  Their unflinching loyalty to their slightly off-center but always beloved Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson.

The Closer went out with a bang … several of them in fact.  At least one of the cast might not make it out the other side.  And while it was one of those mostly annoying mid-season finales, at least we only have to wait until January to see how it all shakes out.

Sons of Anarchy

Sons of Anarchy is a new drama on FX.  Like almost every original series FX has done, it is better than most of the nonsense on TV.  So … watch it.  Give it a try.  See what you think … there are much worse ways to kill an hour (less than that if you have the DVR).  But that’s not what I really want to write about today.  Here’s the thing …

Katey Sagal scares the hell out of me.  Even back in the glory days of Married with Children, she was one scary lady, overtly sexual and larger than life.  Katey also provides the voice for Leela on the animated series Futurama.  Leela is an uncomfortably attractive cyclopian cartoon chick … how is that not scary?

But Katey’s latest role as Gemma Teller Morrow, the matriarch of the Sons of Anarchy gang, gives me goosebumps … the good kind, the bad kind, and the “holy crap” kind.  This is pretty much an entire gang of violent sociopaths but the one that scares me the most is dear old mom.  One minute, she is tidying up her beloved son’s home, the next she is threatening to kill that same son’s drugged-out girlfriend … in her hospital room.

And brother, I believe her.  Gemma Teller Morrow is destined to be an epic role for Katey.  When she is being mom, she is one wonderful mom.  But when she is something else, man, she is really something else.  Road-worn and battle-scarred and as dangerous as Tony Saprano or Vic Mackey ever hoped to be.  This alone would make SoA eminently watchable.  You will find yourself rooting for this woman, just like we somehow allowed ourselves to root for Tony and Vic.

I always knew Peg Bundy could kick my ass.  Gemma Teller Morrow wouldn’t bother … she would just have me killed.

Sons of Anarchy airs on FX, Wednesdays at 10/9c (encores available)

Rutina Wesley

Vampires have come out of the coffin. Come on … you have to love that line! It is the perfect tagline for this series, but it also applies in general to popular fiction in a variety of formats.  Movies like Underworld and Blade, books like Twilight and the Anita Blake series.  Last season, network TV tried to tap into this vein with Moonlight.  What I saw of that (admittedly not much), it was a rather pedestrian effort at the genre with no bite whatsoever.

True Blood, on the other hand, is all about the bite. The basic premise is this: Vampires have always been around, but keeping a mostly low profile. What with all the killing and blood drinking and stuff giving them a bad reputation. Then along comes this synthesized blood, conveniently pre-packaged and available at your local retailer in the refrigerated section. Just like that, vampires are people too.

Hell, I know I’m a lot less evil after a visit to Starbucks.

While that supplies your basic framework, there is a lot more going on.  The series is building its own mythology, including the idea of “reverse” vampirism where humans can themselves benefit from vampire blood.

The writers have not locked themselves into ignoring other possible supernatural (or superhuman) constructs.  Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) is a waitress with telepathic abilities, something it seems may run in the family.  I’m not familiar with the Southern Vampire series upon which True Blood is based, so it’s possible there may be other supernatural potential down the road.

The only notable vampire as of the first episode is Bill (Stephen Moyer).  The idea that this mysterious stranger is simply named Bill amuses Sookie to no end.  But Sookie’s real attraction to Bill is the fact her abilities do not work on him … she can’t “hear” him like she can everyone else.  Moyer does a fantastic job playing Bill as entirely unreadable, not just psychically, but in almost every look, word, or gesture.  As viewers, we want to think Bill is one of the good vampires, but we really don’t know.  And neither does Sookie, which brings a lot of flavor to their relationship.

The town of Bon Temp is populated by all kinds of characters.  Almost everyone is quirkie.  Believable or not, that makes it sort of a fun place to visit.  This Louisiana town feels pretty claustrophobic, whether that’s the intent of the series or just a side-effect of almost all scenes being indoors or at night.  Set against that atmosphere is dialogue that is almost too witty but certainly amusing.  There’s a rather salty exchange between the employees of the bar where Sookie works that is most enjoyable, one which quickly gives us insight into these characters.  Another exchange between Sookie’s best friend Tara (Rutina Wesley) and a store customer is simply hilarious.  The dialogue may be the closest thing to Aaron Sorkin we will see on TV for a long time.

While I’ve read that others find the juxtaposition of humor and violence a little disruptive, I don’t agree.  It works for me, as does the fairly graphic sexual content.  Vampires and sex are an iconic combination and, since this is HBO, we get the uncensored version that.

I’m intrigued.  This could turn into something special for HBO.  I have a feeling I’m going to get sucked in either way.

True Blood airs on HBO at 9/8c (check listings for additional times).