During slow TV weeks, I take solace in the thought that breaks like them will most likely be a thing of the past. More people are expecting their shows without a break, and by not delivering that, networks are hurting their shows and brand.

Fortunately innovative and different season structures keep cropping up and it makes me look forward to a time when more shows just run straight thought. There may be benefits to having a show be around all year, but they are slowly being eroded by viewers need for instant gratification.

So with so many of our regular shows taking a break last week, we here at SPJ tried something new and have a few DVD reviews as well. It may be too late for last week, but the wasteland of December and January are fast approaching.

Here’s what we thought this week–let us know what you thought in the comments.

Robert

Castle
Three words: Firefly geeks rejoice!

Lucky Louie
Pardon the lateness, but I just saw that Louis CK has a new show simply named Louie that’s been picked up by FX. That should already be enough to have fans of his razor-sharp comedy excited but we’ll have to hold off on discussing the show until it airs early next year.

In the meantime, I totally suggest checking out CK’s HBO series Lucky Louie sometime. It’s crass, vulgar and cuts right to the bone with honesty as it tells the story of Louie, a mechanic who spends just as much time working as he does at home taking care of his four year old daughter. Whether he’s having it out with his wife Kim because of his man-child tendencies, hanging around with buddies discussing how to discipline an “asshole” child or unwittingly punching holes in the drywall of racial harmony that stands between him and his neighbor Walter, Louie is just a regular guy trying to make it through life.

Production values are kept to a minimum but the trade-off comes in the form of real dialog and performances and for the most part, even the half-hour resolutions are kept honest because, really, CK’s type of audience wouldn’t have it any other way. The show was one of the few HBO series filmed before a live audience in traditional sitcom setup but by the looks of it, has fallen completely off of HBO’s proud lineup of original programming. Not to worry though, because you can still catch the entire 12-episode series on DVD.

Scott

Mad Men
From the moment Roger’s daughter unveiled her wedding invitation bearing what could be the worst wedding date of all time – November 23, 1963 – we knew where the third season of Mad Men was headed. What we didn’t know was that JFK’s death would hit in the season’s penultimate episode (which is becoming the traditional place for each seasons’ high point after last year’s masterful “The Mountain King”), saving next week as some sort of grim epilogue. “The Grown-Ups” easily belongs in the top tier of Mad Men’s finest moments, working not only as a fascinating look at how a group of characters we’ve come to know over the past three years reacts in one of the defining moments of their country and their own lives, but also as a standalone glimpse into how normal people are changed by national catastrophe. Life will go on, but it will be very different.

Big name director Barbet Schroeder, of Reversal of Fortune/Single White Female fame, captured some incredible moments visually, chief among them Don’s solemn contemplation on the end of is marriage with his head slung low like the famous Aaron Shikler painting of JFK. As usual though, the subtle character moments were where the real action happened. Pete has become a turtlenecked liberal hipster, Peggy finds no solace in her cultural Catholicism, and even the hapless Duck gets a pang of sympathy from us as his thoughts immediately shift from a lunchtime tryst to to his children. And then there’s stoic, unmoved Don, reacting to the murder of the president with all the emotion of flushing a dead goldfish down the toilet. His complete lack of passion is the final straw for Betty, who seems to be seriously weighing taking up with a boring bureaucrat. After all this, what’s left for the season finale?

Zoe

30 Rock
We can agree that “Real America” is a fake concept that needs to disappear, part of what has kept it around is the indignant outrage by “non-Real Americans” over it, the very people who happily dismiss places as “fly-over” country.

So while this week’s 30 Rock makes some valid points, chief among them that people from “Real America” are no dumber or purer than anyone else, it failed in ways that make it clear that the Real/Fake dichotomy will be around a while yet.

For example, and I say this with no disrespect intended to our Georgian-native son Scott, 30 Rock kept calling Georgia Middle America. Now, “Real America” may signify whatever we want, but Middle America sort of refers, you know, to the middle of the country, which does not include small Southern Appalachian towns. It’s a small point, but mistakes like that irk me, especially when someone is ostensibly critiquing a dialogue that deals with those differences.

Ellen

This Just In: New Yorker Messes Up, Looks Uncomfortable
Like many Americans, I’ve been watching a lot of baseball recently because it’s on like a 1970s miniseries every night. I’d much prefer going to a game over seeing it on TV, but given the fervency of the fair-weather Yankees fans around me it’s safer and cheaper not to be in the stands. If you can’t wait to see the Phanatic lick his last and A-Rod commission another portrait of himself as a mythical creature, I recommend filling those nine-inning nights with one of my favorite one-season-and-out TV shows, a fish-out-of-water procedural with Guy Ritchie-esque cuts and soundtrack. Oh, and Sienna Miller.

I wasn’t cool enough to catch Keen Eddie when it originally aired on Fox in 2003, so I have to thank my colllege friend Ainslie for introducing me to this show, about a New York cop (Mark Valley, who has never really gotten a chance since — witness his supporting roles on Boston Legal and Swingtown) sent to a London office as punishment for botching a drug bust. For real stakes in a crime show I’d rather “Veronica Mars” or “Castle” — this show is fast-paced fun from opera stalkers (in the episode “Achtung Baby”) to antique Bentley appreciators (“Keeping Up Appearances”). The ultimate payoff: “Citizen Cecil,” which neatly upends every convention the show has been operating on while going for the world record of number of Duran Duran songs used in a 45-minute show. On Amazon, it’s $22.49 well spent.