I Like to Watch

Jan. 14, 2007 | Now that ugly is the new pretty, white is the new black, and black is the new pink, back fat is the new six-pack, crotch shot is the new boob flash, Eastwood is the new Spielberg, babies are the new handbag dogs, handbag dogs are the new shelter dogs, and George Clooney is the new George Clooney, I guess it's about time that midseason became the new fall season.

Personally, I'm always far more excited about midseason TV than I am about fall TV. First of all, there's no longer a glut of crappy pilots on the air, most of them having shriveled up and blown away like the autumn leaves, well before Thanksgiving. Remember all of those melodramatic serial traumedies about kidnappings, runaway families and elaborate heists? Yeah, neither do I.

When the crappy pilots go, they leave room for a sprinkling of ultra-crappy pilots, the kinds of shows that are so willfully bad, so experimentally awful, that they used to be relegated to the summer season. But now that the summer season is the new midseason, and the midseason is the new fall season ... Wait, I'm getting confused. All I know is that shows like NBC's "Grease: You're the One that I Want" (cheesy humans audition to play Sandy and Danny on Broadway), VH1's "I Love New York" (the notoriously deranged diva from "Flavor of Love" returns with her own search for a man), and CBS' "Armed & Famous" (D-list celebrities train to become cops in Muncie, Ind.) are the greasy but irresistible happy-hour beer nuts of the midseason menu. You'll sample their salty goodness out of curiosity, and wake up one hour later riding a porcelain bus to the land of queasy regrets.

On top of that, the best pilots and returning fall shows usually hit their stride right around this time of year. "Battlestar Galactica" seems to kick into high gear around midseason, the long-lost "Lost" returns with new episodes, "Extras" is back and better than ever, and most important, Jack Bauer of "24" returns to save the country from yet another terrorist menace with mean little eyes and a creepy foreign accent.

Torture becomes him
Mmmm, yes. I cannot wait for the new season of "24" (premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday) to begin. I just have a hunch that it's going to be the best season yet. Of course, you really can't lose when Jack was last seen getting beaten up on a slow boat to China. With the looming threat of touchy-feely nuclear holocaust show "Jericho" around, I'm guessing the writers of "24" will be more than happy to kick it up a notch and churn out a national security disaster that's more disturbing and outrageous and macabre than ever. As long as desperate people are getting hysterical and rioting in the streets, or better yet, packing up their SUVs full of canned goods, blankets and small firearms and setting off on an ill-fated journey in search of clean drinking water, I'm happy. Mushroom clouds are the new Portobello mushrooms, after all. I really hope that Chloe has found true love with someone who's even more irritating and angry than she is, because the best scenes on "24" are the ones where Chloe is bickering pointlessly as the world comes to an end.

Also? Despite all their talk of true love, I never really bought that Audrey and Jack made a good pair. Isn't Jack a little dirtier than that? Would a guy who's been beaten and tortured and driven half-crazy really fall for a prim little kitten-faced girly like Audrey? Why can't they find him a big, rollicking, lusty gal with a smart mouth and no intention of shyly stepping out of the way when national security demands it? Jack needs to be put in his place by a sassy, swaggering, big-boned woman. Jack needs a modern-day Katharine Hepburn, except with a little less class. And a bigger ass.

But really, let's be honest: Jack can pine for Audrey all he wants, as long as he's so jittery and traumatized by two straight years of Chinese water torture that every time anyone even leaves the sink dripping -- drip, drip, drip -- he kills someone with his bare hands.

Oh my god! As I was writing those words I heard a kerthunk on my front porch, and what do we have here? The first four hours of "24," along with a jaunty "24" travel mug for my coffee, which I could theoretically use if I ever left the house! Hello, night of delightful, nail-biting suspense! Time to fire up the chicken pot pies. (Look for a review of the two-night four-hour premiere next week.)

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