Friday, November 16, 2007

The hidden jewels of primetime




Photo by ABC.com

Two shows I want to put on your radar: "Women's Murder Club" and "Journeyman." Both are based in San Francisco.

"WMC" stars Angie Harmon and it's basically "Sex and the City" in the middle of a squad room. The other members of the group are Jill the D.A, Claire the M.E. and Cindy the cub reporter. The murder mysteries are complex and good and best of all it's on Friday night when there's nothing else on.

"Journeyman" stars Kevin McKidd who's all sorts of wonderful and awesome rolled up in fantastic. The ratings aren't good for this show even though it follows "Heroes." Kevin's character Dan is a reporter for a paper in San Fran and travels through time. The show is amazing and you really, really need to watch.

I still miss it




Photo by ABC

In August 1994, ABC quietly rolled out a show about a 15-year-old girl name Angela Chase who lived in a suburb of Pittsburg. Angela lived with her mom Patty and dad Graham and bratty kid sister Danielle. At school she hung out with drunk and hurting Rayanne and sexually ambigous but later full-on gay Ricky. Across the street, her neighbor Brian Krakow quietly pines for her and tries to be a part of her life as much as possible.

It didn't get much of a viewership and 19-episodes later it was cancelled.

It was the first TV show that I ever loved at an adult. I was late to the party because I was busy setting up my life in a new state and was struggling to come to terms with issues in my life and then I saw the Christmas episode. To this day, it ranks in the Top 10 hours of TV in my opinion.

The thing that was cool about "MSCL" is this: It was the WB before there WAS a WB. The kids weren't perfect and neither were the parents. The kids drank, smoked and had sex and felt so damn REAL.

In my high school there WAS a Rayanne, an Angela, a Ricky and of course a Jordan Catalano (Poor Jared Leto. When he dies I'm betting this role will STILL be listed on his obit).

If you cherish good TV or know someone who does, then you can now own all 19-episodes in the recently released boxed set. The sad thing about this show is that it ended with a doozy of a cliffhanger : Does Angela know that Brian wrote that love letter to her? In the boxed set we get some answers to some lingering questions such as what happened to the on the rocks relationship of Patty and Graham. And we learn that someone was going to get pregnant.

Fall in love with high school all over again by buying this set.