So it took maybe one second to realize I was far from the target audience for Lipstick Jungle.  We start with shots of women’s calves as their expensive high heels clack down New York sidewalks.  A newscaster tells us that the sets of legs belong to a trio of the most powerful women in the country.  Then, boom, fashion show.  If not self-mandated to review every new show for this site, I might well have hit the remote right there.

However, I liked the show.  Well… at least I liked the structure on which it was built.  With an ensemble of three, LJ had time to explore each character well.  There was strong conflict in each storyline, and the pacing and development for each woman was compelling.  Less appealing was the fact that this sorority of female power elite featured less power and more sorority.  Good storytelling might get me to overlook the lack of subtlety in visiting feminist themes (Career vs. family, marital doldrums, arrogant suitors, boys’ club co-workers, all in the pilot?  Leave yourself some girl-power territory for later!) but I will never love the conversation if it has to happen while shopping for scarves and coconut body oil.  Perhaps the target audience will find this juxtaposition intriguing, but I thought the tone undermined the premise.  Maybe I’m giving the producers too much credit for wanting to create high-status female characters of depth, but the opportunity is undeniable.  Make-up tips in every commercial break don’t help.

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…he writes something like this post to UnitedHollywood.

Dear Writers,

I have good news. I have lots of good news. In fact, I have way too much good news.

The strike is almost over. A resolution is days away. Weeks. Friday. Valentine’s day. Two weeks exactly from whenever my manager/agent/lawyer told me. Yes, after talking to writers and actors all over town, I’m happy to report that the strike is going to end every single day until March. Huzzah! All of this entirely reliable information means that at last the dream of the writing community has been realized: the Oscars will be saved.

Let’s step back.

The Oscars seem to be the point of focus for a lot of this speculation. That either they must be preserved, or that the studios feel they must be preserved, and therefore this terrible struggle will end. There is an argument to be made for wanting the show to go on: it showcases the artists with whom we are bonded (there’s no award for Best Hiding of Net Profits), and it provides employment and revenue for thousands in the community that has been hit so hard by this action. Having said that, it’s a f%$#ing awards show. It’s a vanity fair. It’s a blip. We’re fighting (fighting, remember?) for the future of our union, our profession, our art. If that fight carries us through the Holy Night when Oscar was born, that’s just too bad.

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So muppet geeks now have something to look forward to more than the Dark Crystal sequel. Empire Film Group acquired the rights to a script called Henson, telling the life story of the man himself. Could become one of my favorite movies ever… but the degree of difficulty is darn high. Never heard of Empire Film Group? Surely we can have faith that the production studio behind Blonde & Blonder II, starring Pamela Anderson and Denise Richards, will handle this film with dignity and grace, yes? Uh… Oh dear. P.S. YES, there is going to be a Blonde & Blonder III!

In my youth, I was patriotic. I remember the feeling. Whatever might have been America’s sins as a collective, I believed our balance scale still tipped toward greatness, that we had things figured out at least as well as any government on this planet so far, and that our future offered sincere promise for ever nobler accomplishment. Hey, I’m an idealist.

I can’t say exactly when I became disillusioned. It was a gradual slip over many years, until a jaded comment on my part prompted a friend to label me, “a good, self-hating American.” That was hard to hear. I’m an idealist, aren’t I?

Was it the 2000 election that so soured me? The effect was undeniable, watching media predictions sway public opinion. I remember talking to a black friend from Florida who described intimidation tactics used at polling places, police cars with lights flashing. I remember rhetoric spewed by PR men about how the other side was asking for “ANOTHER recount,” before even the state constitutionally mandated one had been done. 24-hour news had no patience for letting the buffer zone built into our elections process do its job. I remember what was supposed to be an of-the-people process co-opted by lawyers, and witnessing the pinnacle of litigiousness as law suits determined our leader.

Or perhaps my loss of faith arrived when a tragedy occurred, and for a moment the world poured compassion to our country, but an administration that may or may not have been elected chose not to serve as an example to the world. It might have been the years watching the Bush administration ignore the voices of allies, the opinions of American citizens, and the increasing objections of the other branches of government. For reasons that will likely never be made clear, they used a contrived excuse to nation-build. Christianity is worth exploiting for votes, but not worth consulting on behavior. Fiscal responsibility has value as an accusation to defeat political opponents, but not as a guiding principal in forming policy. The Constitution of The United States can be applied selectively. I grew embarrassed by my nationality. I feared I was beholding the end of the American Empire.

I was wrong.

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If there is any truth to these rumors, it would be the coolest news since Barack took Iowa.

Lost is a really good TV show. Not phenomenal (most of the time, anyway.) Just really good. A-minus. However, one thing we must give Lost is that it is groundbreakingly original in the way it has unfolded its mysterious, occasionally goofy, always compelling story. If you ask me, Lost was spiraling to its creative doom, with ratings following suit, when the creative team made the decision that saved it: to end it. Season one was fresh and intense stuff, season two struggled with its identity, and the first half of season three further failed to deliver. Season three, recall, suffered from a move by network higher-ups to split it into one barrage of new episodes before Thanksgiving, then another nothing-but-new streak when it returned in Feb. ‘07.* Right about then, executives and producers decided to announce that Lost would end after its fifth season. Suddenly, the rest of season three got really good. It’s no coincidence. Remember, Lost has been experimental and risky from inception. The pilot was the most expensive to produce to date by far. (Copycats burst out the following season, with every network willing to inflate the budgets if it meant their own version of the sensation Lost had become. They pretty much all failed. The pendulum swung the other way, to the point that NBC has recently made statements about not wanting to fund pilots at all any more.) The ensemble cast is huge and therefore expensive. (Evidently, when searching for their original cast, they didn’t cast with regard to race at all. Yunjin Kim auditioned for the role of Kate, and they liked her so much, they created the role of Sun around her. And then added a husband, expanding the cast by yet another, meaning everything cost all the more, before they’d shot a frame.) All told, it was a risky package, but a fantastic concept. And then someone found what is the absolute key of Lost’s success: the flashbacks. Each episode would focus on the backstory of one of the characters, intercut with what happens to that character on the island in the present. As Charlie might have said, bloody brilliant. The show would be able to get us off the island, all the while telling us, nay, showing us the inner workings of the people stuck on it. We, unlike their islandmates, would know their secrets. Mix in an uncanny ability to tease us with tiny hints, then big reveals that only ask more questions, and you have a hit.

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