Last Time You'll Hear About These...

We’ve been on vacation away from the idiot box for two weeks, and it’s taken me a little while to get through the pile-up on the DVR. Thanks to the following three shows for making that task a little easier:

The Beautiful Life. I don’t know why the CW is still so obsessed with finding a companion to America’s Next Top Model: Tyra is rumored to be bored with the show and the current season is enjoying an ever declining viewership. Still, of the many shows jettisoned as a potential ANTM compliment, The Beautiful Life failed the fastest, which is kind of impressive. It’s no wonder: the high point was Mischa Barton reformatting her role as the vomiting ghost in Sixth Sense to a model that goes from pregnant to a runway stick in just six months.

Mercy. Remember how much I loved HawthoRNe? Mercy may actually be worse. I don’t know who convinced Michelle Trachtenberg to go back to the “Who, me?” acting style from her early days on Buffy, but it’s a huge backslide from the diabolically resourceful Georgina Sparks of Gossip Girl.

But the hands-down winner for most disappointing new show would have to be…

Cougartown. Remember how I was rooting for a fast-paced snarkfest? Cougartown delivered a never-ending hangover from the premise that woman have to wear too little clothing and drink too much alcohol to have a good time.

I said, "Meh" to most of the Emmy wins this year, but...

Congratulations to Glenn Close for her Emmy win for her portrayal of Patty Hewes of FX’s Damages!! An amazing show, an amazing character, an amazing actress!

OMFG!

If you’ll remember, in this post about Entourage, I ridicule the thought that Gossip Girl can make it past the graduation from high school of most of its main characters.

September 14’s “Reversals of Fortune” may as well have begun with credits reading: “We probably should have made them freshmen in season one, but, shucks, the success of this show surprised us as much as it surprised everyone else.”

The show then proceeded to launch into a frenzied effort to build ridiculous sub-plots that have only one purpose: to distract viewers from the fact that all of these kids are supposed to be starting at prestigious Ivy League schools next week, thereby ending the drama their day-to-day contact creates.

Serena (Blake Lively)’s big plan is to taunt her estranged father with paparazzi photos of her in innumerable compromising positions so that he’ll take her calls. Now, I’m with the rest of the world in thinking that Blake Lively may be an escapee from some lab whose purpose is to create the perfect woman, but, you know what, I just don’t see much plot potential here. And that’s too bad, because Serena was in need of some serious growth—-her character hasn’t been interesting in a very long time. But no, the writers have instead decided to rest in the easy stereotype of “daddy issues.”

Add to that a gratuitous sex plot featuring Chuck (Ed Westwick) and Blair (Leighton Meester) that reinforces a stereotypical need of women to belittle their “competition” and folks, we’ve got ourselves a R-E-A-L winner of a season.

Everyone take a deep breath...

Near the end of the second season of The OC, Sports Guy Bill Simmons of ESPN Page 2 fame wrote a fantastic column comparing 90210 to The OC. He gives the ultimate edge to 90210 (which turned out to be the correct assessment—90210 ran for ten years while The OC barely made it four), and one of his reasons is plot development: “At the rate they're going, by Season 4, we'll see Ryan kidnapped by a UFO or something.” Actually season four saw Ryan falling into an alternate universe where, in a parody of It’s a Wonderful Life, he got to see what Newport Beach would be like without him, but still, a pretty good prediction.

I’m worried about Glee already.

Last night’s season premiere, “Showmance,” included the following: the glee club appearing to at least temporarily win over the student body and principal (Igbal Theba), Rachel (Lea Michele) being driven to desperation by her attraction to Finn (Cory Monteith), Emma (Jayma Mays) making desperate plays for Will (Matthew Morrison), Rachel almost making out with Finn, the revelation that Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig) is experiencing a hysterical pregnancy, Terri lying to Will about said pregnancy, Sue (Jane Lynch) planting some of her Cheerios on the glee club in an effort to destroy it, Will falling for Sue’s ploy and giving Rachel’s solo to cheerleader Quinn (Dianna Argon—could they cram anymore ex-Heroes into this show?), Emma reaching closure on attraction to Will and agreeing to date Ken (Patrick Gallagher), and Will quitting his second job so far for this series—a nighttime janitorial gig at the school that was meant to finance a new house that he and Terri both decide to buy and abandon the idea of buying in the same episode.

At this rate, Glee might be kidnapped by a UFO this season.

This manic flurry of activity isn’t a good trait in a sitcom, and not just because of the “viewers already feel like they need to watch each episode twice to keep up” factor. The message of instant gratification that the show promotes in its female characters (because its male characters all seem to drift through the action obliviously) is potentially a destructive one: if insta-resolution can’t be reached, the problem is with you!

The show has a lot of built-in, quirky edginess that needs to be allowed to develop, not thrust upon viewers by the mountain-full. It’s okay, Glee, you’ve got more than enough hype and viewership to guarantee that even the Fox guillotine will stick with you for at least one season.

There was a reason that they went away the first time, you know...

E! Online is reporting that the CW’s remake of Melrose Place only pulled a disappointing 2.3 million viewers.

What?! No takers for filling the vacancies left by the likes of Heather Locklear, Courtney Thorne-Smith, and Marcia Cross with tweens with no major acting credits? Really?! It couldn’t possibly be because the people that were originally captivated by this show are now WAY out of your normal demographic, could it, CW?

In fairness, I haven’t seen it, and I’m not likely to. The lack of internet buzz tells me all I need to know.

It was kind of cute when they brought back 90210. But season one’s debut out-performed season two’s debut by a two-to-one margin. Message: people only watched the show to see how Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty aged, and now they’re over it. And in the interim, the CW continues to give teenage girls everywhere adult models that are past the awkwardness of adolescence as prototypes of what it takes to be among the non-tortured elite of your local high school. Way to go, guys, I’m sure you haven’t inspired any eating disorders or desperation to grow up too fast AT ALL.

Start Your Engines...

It’s the day after Labor Day, which can only mean one thing: Fox and the CW try to conquer the 18-49 crowd’s quota of new TV shows before anyone else can.

I’m prepared to be disappointed, but here are the new shows that I’m excited about:

1) The Good Wife (CBS). I don’t know why, but CBS shows seldom do it for me. But Chris Noth returning to a variation of his role as Mr. Big? You have my full attention. I’m a little worried that the show is going to over-rely on star power, with Mr. Sex and the City and Juliana Margulies of ER fame as the two leads, but I do love a good female reinvention drama.
2) The Modern Family (ABC). I’m hoping that this show will be what In The Motherhood should have been. But given ABC’s track record with the subject (In the Motherhood, Surviving Surburbia…) it’s more a hope-springs-eternal mindset that pushes this show to the number two slot.
3) Glee (Fox). Attention: Fox has finally learned that targeted marketing works! IMDB reports that the show, which is basically a remake of the ill-fated Freaks and Geeks set to music, is currently up 793% in popularity. The gleek in me was already prepared to love this show, and the fact that it gives a home to the genius of Jane Lynch (late of The L Word) and Lea Michele (of the Broadway genius Spring Awakening) convinced me. But Fox? You know how sometimes you get over-excited about the rare potential Nielson success of one of your launches and proceed to pimp the show until everyone is sick of it? The tweet-peats have gotta go.
4) Cougar Town (ABC). It seems to be the year for re-launching the careers of former network stars that enjoyed cult-followings. If that’s going to be the theme, I’m glad that Courtney Cox made the cut, even if it is with playing the reincarnation of Edie Brit from Desperate Housewives. Tons of talent involved in this series—Cox plus Bill Lawrence (Scrubs)’s skills as producer—I’m hoping that the script will reflect it in a fast-paced snark-fest. Hopefully the time slot (9:30 on Wednesday), doesn’t mean that it’s just a placeholder for the return of LOST in January.
5) Eastwick (ABC). I cannot imagine the fabled town of Eastwick without Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, and Cher, but for the sake of the tremendous combined talents of Lindsay Price, Rebecca Romijn, and Jamie Ray Newman, I’m going to try. And it would be nice to see ABC be able to expand their woman-friendly line-up into the realm of fantasy.

Sorry, CW. The early premiere didn't work here. You're further down on the DVR prioritizer.

But these, I will miss.

Yesterday, I talked about what shows I was overjoyed to see banished from the idiot box.

Today, I’m mourning fallen shows that, to varying degrees, were interesting for women. Unfortunately, this list is a lot longer:

The L Word (Showtime). I’m actually impressed that The L Word made it as long as it did. The show was a wonderful exploration of the mania of living in a community bound by a life of otherness. And it did so without being preachy. The final two seasons moved away from this exploration in favor of scandalous hook-ups, which proved to be the show’s ultimate undoing. The series’ finale, “Last Word,” was more a manic surrender than anything else.

Lipstick Jungle (NBC): I’ve said it here before: it’s tough to make a show that needs to capitalize on the Sex and the City void to be successful when you have to censor the gratuitous sex and swearing to squeak it through network approval. After just two seasons, Lipstick Jungle finally lost the fight. It turns out that women’s problems that aren’t solved by Jimmy Choo’s aren’t as commercially viable, which is a sad social comment.

Privileged (CW). Privileged might have made it on a different network, but it’s not right for the CW’s demographic, who tune into Gossip Girl, America’s Next Top Model, and 90210. The quarter-life crisis of a Yale graduate just didn’t fit in the line-up. It’s a pity, Megan (Joanna Garcia) was one of the most relatable characters on television for the twenty-something crowd that, like this author, hasn’t quite realized their ambitions for what they want to be when they grow up.

The Starter Wife (USA). This cancellation might be one of the saddest, if only for the realization that, when the boys make fun of the more ridiculous qualities of Hollywood on Entourage, it’s a blockbuster, but when the girls do it on The Starter Wife, it gets cancelled. Plus, I’m a sucker for Debra Messing, and think it’s sad that she’ll probably never find a post-Will and Grace home.

The Unusuals (ABC). This show not finding a following is one of those things that make me think I’m hopelessly out of touch with popular reality. The show was packed with talent like Amber Tamblyn (Gilmore Girls and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), Harrold Perrineau (LOST), and Adam Goldberg (Entourage and How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days). The script had a Seinfeld-esque quirkishness that made you laugh, shake your head, and see bits of yourself and your friends in everyone on the screen.

So long, friends! It is with a heavy heart that I delete you from the DVR prioritizer.

I needed to make sure that they were really dead…

The cancellations of the following shows are victories for all of womankind:

In the Motherhood (ABC). I view this show's inability to gain a viewership as a mark that there is, in fact, still a world worthy of typical collegiate aspirations of saving it. ABC marketed the show as being about the “challenges of juggling motherhood with work and love lives in a complicated modern world.” It was really about an obsessive-compulsive competitive parenter raising children she’s already made into basket-cases, a washed up rockstar that didn’t appear to parent at all, and a working mom that didn’t appear to work or mom. There was no juggling or challenge—just an uninspired reveling in defeat.

Kath and Kim (NBC). Every few years, Molly Shannon tries to make some non-SNL TV comeback. Every one of them gets yanked in a few episodes, probably because her slapstick, flat characters just don’t work in anything but sketches. And it’s generally a bad sign when one of your leads, Selma Blair, tells the media that she’s embarrassed to be seen in her costumes. Here’s to not celebrating mediocrity!

Feel Good Feminism

Every summer, re-runs and reality television eventually send me running to places like Lifetime, the network specialists in easily consumed moral dramadies. And, honestly, I don’t usually mind. Sometimes I need to be reminded that while totalizing and lasting change is the ultimate goal of feminism, its prerequisite is an individual change in consciousness. Lifetime lets me watch that happen to varying degrees of cheesiness.

And this summer’s Drop Dead Diva was one tasty hunk of cheese. Jane (Brooke Elliot), a plus-sized attorney, is shot and killed (at her office, by the husband of a woman the managing partner is banging—talk about a hazardous work environment). At the same time Deb (Brooke D’Orsay), an aspiring model heading to an audition for The Price is Right, is hit by a fruit truck. Deb arrives in heaven, and is informed that she’s too shallow to warrant heaven or hell. While gatekeeper Fred (Ben Feldman) puzzles over this anomaly (I guess it’s good it doesn’t happen often… right?), Deb hits the “return” button on his computer’s keyboard. She’s returned, but into the newly vacant body of Jane. You see where we’re headed: the gag of making the pretty girl switch places with the fat girl is as old as TV itself, but somehow, set against a backdrop of economic depression, the return to “lookism” takes on a fresher quality than we had any right to expect.

Jane conquers all sorts of social issues: waitresses fired for weight gain (July 19’s “The ‘F’ Word”), wrongful imprisonment (August 16’s “Second Chances”), and starvation plans fraudulently marketed as diets (August 23’s “The Magic Bullet”). And the whole time, Deb is learning what the world is like when you’re not granted immunity from social rules because you’re gorgeous. It’s the kind of show that makes you wish that there really was a way to let people experience discrimination first-hand.

Candace Bushnell, in her newest attempt to prove that vapid materialism is somehow empowerment, 4 Blondes, has a guy that gets laid because he’s rich remark to a prominent editor, “You used to be pretty yourself. Before you got smart.” Drop Dead Diva’s one failure is that it doesn’t touch this either/or dilemma: in fact, it banks on it. Stacy (April Bowlby), Deb’s friend (and the only one who knows that she’s Jane) is routinely stumped by the simplest day-to-day tasks of her career as an unemployed model. Kim (Kate Levering), presented in the show as Jane’s “attractive” counterpart, routinely bests the clearly more capable Jane with her greater feminine wiles. I’m not saying that they have to go Legally Blonde, but some attention to this aspect of “lookism” would be nice, since Lifetime has announced that the show will be back for a second season.

Home Boys Office

Has anyone else noticed that since the death of HBO’s Sex and the City, any premium cable channel original series that centers on women airs on Showtime?

Entourage, which kicked off its sixth season last night with “Drive,” seems to be a microcosm of this trend. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved Entourage since its premiere for its refusal to take itself too seriously as it satirizes an industry known mostly for taking itself too seriously. The characters are just outrageous enough to be believable, creating the kind of entertainment that makes you shake your head at the state of the world while secretly rooting against a remedy that would make this kind of comedy impossible. I always buy the seasons when they’re released on DVD, and once that first DVD goes in the player, I am dead to the world until I’ve finished the season.

It was actually season five before I started to marvel at how disposable women really are on this series. Maybe I didn’t notice because I was too busy marveling at how Entourage’s writers have done what most series have found impossible: taken a concept that originated in the naïveté of kids that hit it big and allowed them to grow without killing the comedy. I mean, come on, do you really think that Gossip Girl is going to survive graduation?

But this growth seems very resistent to women, who have always been little more than disposable arm candy for the boys. In the season five finale, writers made a lot of Vince (Adrian Grenier) reconnecting with his childhood sweetheart Kara (Mercedes Masöhn), but she now appears to have been a fixture as temporary as Vince’s period of slumming it in Queens.

On the contrary, what allows the show to progress is its return to an unapologetic celebration of dysfunctional fraternity where none of the boys: Vince, E (Kevin Connolly), Drama (Kevin Dillon), Turtle (Jerry Ferrara), and even the married-with-children super-agent Ari (Jeremy Piven) want to progress beyond Neverland. And women—-with the exception of the appropriately billed Mrs. Ari (Perrey Reeves) who gets to tag along in a Wendy-like fashion—-rock the fairy-tale boat of lost boys far too much.



I mean, come on. They still dress alike.

I don’t take the terminal relegation of promising women co-stars like Emily (Samaire Armstrong), Sloan (Emmanuelle Chriqui), Shauna (Debi Mazar) and even Ari’s partner Barbara Miller (Beverly D’Angelo) as misogyny on the part of the show’s creators-—they’ve proven that they’re far too smart for such transparent commentary. Instead, I see a much more subtle comment on the underbelly of Hollywood made by the story’s arc—-the only way it can continue is through a permanent miring in dysfunction that exposes Hollywood’s lingering sexism along the way.

So even though Weeds, the now cancelled L Word, and Nurse Jackie, the brand-new show from longtime HBO property Edie Falco of Sopranos fame all live at Showtime, I wouldn’t say that HBO quit talking about women Sarah Jessica Parker jumped ship.

Why, Jada, Why?

OK, I’ll admit it: I completely bought into the hype about HawthoRNe that TNT inserted into their never-ending parade of Law and Order re-runs. I like Mrs. Will Smith. Besides, I reasoned, the wife of a man that thwarted his destiny of Fresh Prince syndication hell to become the most popular movie star alive would surely have learned good judgment in picking projects, if only through osmosis, right?

Did you READ the script, Jada? Maybe next time you should let Will take a peek?

TNT has done very well with the summertime lull, hitting consecutive home runs with The Closer, Saving Grace, and Raising the Bar—nice, easily consumable law dramas with very recognizable female leads that serve as nice capstones for the daytime line-up of Law and Order and Without a Trace endless syndication. I guess that HawthoRNe was similarly meant to draw a viewership from fans of their arsenal of ER re-runs. And on paper, the show brings a lot to the table: Jada is half of one of Hollywood’s least-criticized power couples, the show is only the third hour-long series to cast a black woman as a lead, and it’s not like it’s set in an arena that lacks controversy or important issues. I was psyched for a new heroine of the idiot-box to emerge.

Unfortunately, HawthoRNe reaches ER levels only in the innumerable mistakes in the representation of the medicine, the idiotic portrayals of the inner workings of hospitals, and, given these insurmountable technical errors, how ridiculously seriously the shows take themselves.

Jada has said that the project speaks to her because her mother was a nurse. Oh yeah? What does SHE think about the show?

You can almost hear here rationalizations, can’t you? Hey, TNT has provided a productive home for Kyra Sedgwick and Holly Hunter—two more movie stars that everyone’s heard of and no one can remember what they’ve done! Holly Hunter’s won an OSCAR for God’s sake!

It’s my turn, right?



Right?!

The real kicker is, with summer sending the networks into reality TV autopilot, this show had NOTHING to trip over coming out of the starting gate—except itself. And it managed to do just that as it embarked on a confusing set of fractured story lines—each suggesting that something meaningful is looming on the horizon, but none of them actually advancing enough to make us care. The only thing that’s happened so far is a deepening of everyone’s doubts about healthcare and me beginning to wonder if there might be something more engaging in the summer’s onslaught of D-list celebrity mea culpa shows—maybe Kathy Griffin and Denise Richards ARE victims! Maybe Tori and Dean’s marriage will be the first to break the curse of celebrity couple reality shows!

Even Jada looks bored.

Just because we love Buffy around here...

Click here.

Of course she could shut down the most obsessed over fictional character in recent memory. Duh.

And now for something completely different... but not really...

I don’t usually deal with books here, but Commencement, a first novel by fellow Smith College ’03 alum J. Courtney Sullivan, hit rather close to home.

You can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/Commencement-novel-J-Courtney-Sullivan/dp/0307270742/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246679278&sr=8-2

And it made the New York Times Book Review (no small feat for a first-time author): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/books/review/Russo-t.html

I read this book with the same set of emotions that accompany any serious consideration I do of my time at Smith College: very mixed ones. I laughed at Celia and Bree worrying about gaining “the freshman fifty” after seeing the upper class women (for the record, I only gained thirty and lost it all after spending a semester abroad). I fondly remembered the uniquely engaging controversy over changing the student constitution from “she” to “the student” in honor of trans-gender rights. I smiled at April shaving her head in a euphoric moment of celebrating shock value. I frowned at the enduring experience of displacement that haunts all the characters—in their lives at Smith and beyond. I cried (well, almost) at a fall-out scene between the four friends—it reminded me that Smith created both my most supportive and devastatingly critical relationships. And I resented the idea that such a complicated experience could be contained within a book’s covers.

And, like my Smith education, I’d do it again, even with the benefit of hindsight.

The book risks making a spectacle of the most formative experience of my life—and I don’t hate it for it. And, in my book, that makes it worth a read.

Huh?

Another moment of shame here: I've always liked Kelly Clarkson. Don't laugh. She's done more with her American Idol win than anyone but maybe Carrie Underwood, and she didn't have the benefit of going through the established publicity factory the show became in later seasons. She even survived From Justin to Kelly. Perhaps most importantly, she doesn't seem to compromise herself: she didn't starve herself even though everyone told her she was fat, and My December told the world quite clearly that she doesn't do what Clive Davis wants. And I'll even admit: I know the words to "My Life Would Suck Without You."

But come on, did she roll out of bed and meander to the So You Think You Can Dance set in a hung-over stupor for tonight's performance? Remember that scene in Blues Brothers where the band crashes a truck stop bar and spends the night singing "Stand By Your Man" and "Rawhide"? She looked like an extra.

Maybe she thinks that getting in touch with her inner honky tonk bar singer is the next logical step in the war she's apparently waging with her commercial success?

A rocky start... Again...

Sorry I’ve been gone so long! I’ve been waiting for Dollhouse to get better…

And waiting…

And waiting…

In the interim, I watched season one of Buffy for the millionth time. The similarities between it and the beginnings of Dollhouse (which, so far, has survived the Fox guillotine) are striking.

1) The writing privileges “tune-in next time” moments over character development.

OK, a show of hands. Who gives a damn about Echo, Sierra, November or Victor?

Anybody?

ANYbody?

Despite the limitations the title may have imposed, Buffy became a very complicated exploration of human nature—particularly the notion of monstrosity. In season two. Season one was all about largely off-screen hooks: Angel, the Hellmouth, the Master. No where near the LOST quotient of the “where the hell is this going?” factor, but the arc of season one’s story line relied a lot more on a viewership’s desire to see what monster showed up next than any investment in the characters.

I’m currently only watching Dollhouse to see what ridiculously skanky outfit they’re going to put Eliza Dushku in next.

2) Incorrect use of the hunky guy.

Remember how the first few episodes of Buffy had the gorgeous David Boreanaz (as Angel) in thick black eyeliner and a 80’s rocker leather jacket, making him look like an overgrown goth geek?

For whatever reason, Whedon can create dazzling heroines immediately. It takes him a while to figure out what do with the male characters. I had some hope for Dominic (Reed Diamond)—but they stuck him in the attic. Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix) hasn’t quite let go of the stiff military quality of his role from The Matrix movies. That goes double for would-be hero Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett): captains of TV star ships (be they Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica) don’t make good romantic interests.

3) The actors aren’t giving enough. At least, not yet.

Sarah Michelle Gellar spoke in a nasally whine tone for her entire first season as Buffy and made little headway in breaking free from her soap opera background. It was clearly David Boreanaz’s first time with a lot of dialogue: the delivery was forced and his cadence was strange. Giles (Anthony Head), Willow (Alyson Hannigan), and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) all lacked depth. It was quite the awkward cast. But they got better, obviously, particularly David Boreanaz, who admits that he didn’t understand his craft in the early days—and channeled that frustration into his character Angel. Boreanaz definitely came the farthest the fastest (and that’s probably why he’s the only one who can still hold down a job), but the entire cast found their stride somewhere in the middle of season two.

Eliza Dushku (who the hell knew should could sing?) and Dichen Lachman (playing Sierra) have demonstrated that they have some serious acting chops in the numerous hats they’ve had to wear so far in Dollhouse. Unfortunately, their supporting cast is dragging them down. Deep.

Which brings us back to waiting…

I didn’t start watching Buffy until season two, and I’ve often wondered if I would have given the show a chance if I’d tuned in for season one.

Whedon uses the TV medium the way it should be, with direct, enjoyable plotlines that are mostly contained from season to season (something LOST and Heroes could stand to try). Assuming the ADD program directors at Fox are still willing to play, I’m sure that the show will find its way, becoming more than the current costume closet parade.

Hallmark (and shoes!) Be Damned!

Lipstick Jungle certainly came back from the break with a bite (say that three times fast). “Lover’s Leaps,” aired on January 2, 2009, took on relationships (of the meaningful non-one night stand variety) from an angle that other series inspired by a Candace Bushnell novel never quite managed: if the essence of relationships is compromise, where do we factor in the kind of ambition that, if it’s ever to go anywhere, has to be unyielding?

Let’s be clear: I’m really disappointed that Nico (Kim Raver), the most successful one in the bunch, seems to yet again be winding up hitched to an authority figure--the only one she has left, in fact, a very suave Griffin (James Lesure), who runs a multi-billion dollar company but mysteriously has time to babysit Nico when she has a bad reaction to her fertility treatments. We don’t need more media images that women, even highly successful ones, require romantic attachments to male mentors to keep their feet on the ground.

Luckily, “Lover’s Leaps” is about more than office romances and glass ceilings. And it’s even more than American feminism’s elephant in the room: if career advancement comes from wholehearted selfishness (which, let’s face it, it usually does) and relationships succeed through deciding what’s best for a duo, how on earth can you have both? Instead, this episode focuses on the rider that elephant has acquired in the last decade, known as the “two (or more) bodies problem”: in a career playing field that in most cases is continuing to grow wider geographically, how do you stay with “the one”?

The question is asked in the context of the marriage of Wendy (Brooke Shields) and Shane (Paul Blackthorne). The latest drama in the Healy household is the looming offer for Shane, whose career usually takes a backseat to Wendy’s, to join Natasha Bedingfield on a four-month tour of thirty cities. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity that anyone would regret and resent giving up. And yet it’s going to thrust one-hundred percent of the responsibility to keep the family running on Wendy, who will in turn wind up with plenty of regret and resentment of her own.

I love that the show runs from the Hallmark moment where Shane decides to give up his dreams and pretends that the family always more than compensates for the loss in favor of letting him take his shot. And I love that the writers have set it up that we don’t believe for a second that there isn’t going to be some serious mid-life crisis drama in Shane’s notes from the road. And what I really love is how Wendy making more money than Shane didn’t fix everything in Wendy’s life. Sex and the City upheld the mantra that unbridled consumerism and an unlimited shoe budget would fix any woman’s life, and I for one, am glad that even Candace Bushnell appears to have begun to appreciate multiple layers of conflict.