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A lot of people are complaining that this year's Curb Your Enthusiasm just isn't as good as previous seasons. I think it's hard to compare against Season 4, which featured a number of ongoing plots that offered plenty of comedic situations: Larry getting a "free pass" from his wife Cheryl to have an affair on their tenth anniversary; Larry trying to fulfill this goal with a filthy mouthed Arabic woman hilariously portrayed by Gina Gershon; and playing the lead role in Mel Brooks' The Producers. The last episode took this joke further than I would have believed possible, as Larry David really did perform some musical numbers from the Broadway hit.

In the just concluded Season 5, Larry David doesn't have such monumental tasks to overcome. Instead he has a quest to find out if he was adopted, if his dog is a racist, and if he can figure out a way to avoid donating his kidney to Richard Lewis. Larry David's curmudgeonly persona on Curb is just as selfish as the fab four on Seinfeld. If this season was about anything, it was about Larry's undeniable selfishness. His best friend throughout the series, the comedian Richard Lewis, is experiencing kidney failure. At the bottom of the donor list, Lewis needs a new kidney pretty quickly. Larry and his manager Jeff get tested and sure enough, they are both viable donors. After a childish game, Larry is selected to make the sacrifice for his friend-but he just can't bear to give up his organ. One of the best episodes has Larry pretending to be an orthodox Jew so that he can buddy up to the doctor heading up the kidney donor program. Larry takes things to such an extreme, that he invites the doctor to Aspen (Larry hates to ski) and even swaps wives with Jeff (because Cheryl is a shiksa). The scene where Larry concocts a story about his life with Susie is funny, but it's even funnier when Larry tries to crawl into bed with her. I always thought there is a great deal of sexual tension between Larry and Susie.

The last episode resolves the Richard Lewis situation in an unexpected way. Larry's private investigator tells Larry that he is adopted. His real parents live in Arizona, and on their first meeting, Larry realizes that they are not Jewish. This revelation turns Larry's world upside down. He enters the world of Protestants with abandon, accompanying his newfound parents everywhere. When a church visit makes Larry revisit the meaning of friendship and self-sacrifice, he rushes back home to give his kidney to Lewis. Things go wrong, as they always do when Larry tries to do unselfish deeds. Richard Lewis winds up healthy on the beach in Hawaii (sipping drinks with a healthy babe) while Larry is on his deathbed. The Rabbi from Season 4's "The Survivor" shows up and asks Larry if he wants to be forgiven for anything he had done in the past. We see all the myriad ways that Larry has been mean to people throughout the past five seasons. And then Larry dies. He dies, and goes to heaven. Dustin Hoffman appears as Larry's guide to the afterlife. Heaven is a pretty good place: Ben Hogan wants to play golf with Larry and Marilyn Monroe is a big fan of Seinfeld. Larry even got a hall pass from Cheryl to fool around until she arrives. But Larry cannot even make Heaven work out properly; an argument with the Guide sends him back to the land of the living.

This episode gives us more insight to Larry's wife. I love Cheryl Hines-I think she's cute, sexy, and sweet. But I can't understand why this woman remains married to such a creep. Let's face it; Larry David's character on the show is somewhere just below Basil Fawlty in terms of meanness and cruelty. In one episode, Larry tells Cheryl that if he knew a nuclear bomb would be detonated in Los Angeles, he wouldn't wait to pick her up and get out of town. When they are re-writing their wedding vows, Larry doesn't like the clause that says they'll be together forever-he thinks they'll just be together on Earth, not Heaven. Larry makes big deals out of small things, like when Cheryl wants him to go to a bar for a drink before dinner. And the whole "free pass" thing is just too wild for a sweet girl like Cheryl. But now we know why Cheryl has endured all this cruelty for so long. When Larry's heart stops beating during "The End", the first thing that Cheryl does is ask the lawyer how much money Larry left her-and to make sure that Jeff repays Cheryl for a debt. OK, this makes more sense now: Cheryl married this mean old man for his Seinfeld money!

Is this The End of Curb Your Enthusiam? Larry David said in a Sept. 2005 interview that he wasn't sure. This sure feels like a farewell episode to me. I think this series has been consistently original, bold, and funny, but maybe it's time for CYE to disappear while it's on top. Nuff said.

Technorati : Cheryl Hines, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David
Ice Rocket : Cheryl Hines, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David

Whatever your fetish may be, HBO's Rome probably featured it during the first season. There was incest (between Octavia and Octavian), lesbianism (Servilla and Octavia), S&M sex (Servilla gets a bound slave with a huge cock), adultery (Niobe having a kid with her brother in law), etc. I can't directly recall homosexuality, but it is pretty funny when Octavian's mother proudly thinks he might be having an affair with Caesar. There was no shortage of violence in episode 11, which featured lots of limbs getting hacked off in an arena.

Pushing all of this smut to the side, ROME was one of the finest series I've ever seen on television-the best since Band of Brothers. Every penny of that $100 million ended up on the screen. And it wasn't just a glorified history lesson. The writers deftly wove a story out of fictional characters involved in the lives of Caesar and Mark Antony. The actors chosen to play the Romans were all from Great Britain. Thirty years ago there must have been a casting rule mandating that all Romans and Nazis must be played by actors from the British Isles. In this case, the casting was dead-on perfect, especially Kevin McKidd as Lucius Vorenus, Ray Stevenson as Titus Pollo, and Ciarán Hinds as Julius Caesar.

As the series progressed, I wondered how far in time it would proceed. I was hoping we'd see a year or two of Caesar's early rule. But when Caesar traveled to Egypt and spent a year there, fathering a son with Cleopatra-I knew the series was progressing fast. The last episode presented Caesar's downfall in the Roman senate. They pulled no punches, showing the first wound coming from a knife that Caesar attempted to grab. Brutus delivered the final stab, an especially horrible blow, as Brutus might have been Caesar's illegitimate son. The staging of this scene was incredibly realistic and well done.

Women were not ignored in this series. I loved the ongoing conflict between Servilla of the Junii and Atia of the Julii. Servilla had an affair with Caesar which Atia ruined. Servilla responded by seducing her daughter Octavia. Atia retaliated by hiring hoodlums to attack Servilla's carriage and strip her naked. Servilla then decides to take out Caesar through her son, Brutus. The way that Servilla chose to distract Lucius Verenus from Caesar's side was incredibly evil. It had terrible consequences for his wife (Indira Varma). What a lovely actress! I will miss her in ROME's second season. Another season for this series would seem like a natural, after the high ratings and critical acclaim. AICN and the New York Times report that HBO's head honcho is having qualms about the high production costs. I hope it does get made. I want to see Mark Antony's efforts to retain power, and Octavian's rise to Emperor. And a Servilla-Atia catfight, round two! Nuff said.

Technorati : HBO, Rome
Ice Rocket : HBO, Rome

My favorite TV show at the moment is LOST. By the time every episode is done, I wish I could instantly see the next one. In a way, I think the people who can wait for the DVD compiliations are lucky. The last few episodes have concentrated on the survivors of the tail section of the plane, who crashed on the eastern side of the island. Their leader emerged almost immediately: Ana Lucia, played by Michelle Rodriguez. There's something I've always liked about Rodriquez from her film work: Girlfight, The Fast and the Furious, and Blue Crush. She doesn't have a look that can be stereotyped--she's not cute, not pretty, but she's extremely fit and attractive in an undefinable way. The LOST writers have taken advantage of Rodriguez' film roles to make Ana Lucia a tough-as-nails, take-no-shit leader. In the episode titled "The Other 48 Days" we learn how the Others attacked the tail survivors and Ana Lucia's efforts to defend them. With the support of Mr. Eko (who seems to Locke's counterpart to this group) the tail survivors roam through the jungle hoping to elude the Others. Just like the west coast group, they have an Other "spy". At first, Ana Lucia thinks it is a fellow called Nathan (remember Ethan from the first season) but this a red herring. The real spy turns out to be a fellow called Goodwin who Ana Lucia busts in a pretty cool interrogation scene while eating some fruit. It's the first indication we get to Ana Lucia's past: she must have been a cop. A trigger happy cop, because she accidentally kills Shannon in the jungle.

In "Collision", we see Ana Lucia going berserk, pointing her gun at everybody to contain Sayid, who naturally wants revenge. This episode had to be one of the finest hours of network TV that I have ever seen. Rodriguez performance is worthy of an Emmy award. We see layers of repressed emotions on her face as we learn about her life as a cop back in Los Angeles. The scene where Ana Lucia pumps a creep full of bullets almost seems lifted out of an Ellroy novel. I also liked seeing Total Recall babe Rachel Ticotin as Ana Lucia's mother. If you still have this episode on your TIVO or VCR, you can download the writers commentary on the LOST podcast site. I played it and watched the episode a second time and marvelled at how fast we can now get this immediate behind the scenes info! The writers are funny, talking about fanfic (Sawyer and Jack in the shower scene), Evangeline Lilly learning Golf, and calling the Dharma bunker a "bachelor pad". If you're a LOST addict, you have to download the MP3 file.

The 11/30/05 episode focuses on Kate's past and her love triangle with Jack and Sawyer. One thing that bothers me is that the Others subplot is taking so long to develop. In the season finale to year 1, we had the impression that the Others were coming to invade the survivors campsite. Now that they have Walt, this threat seems to have subsided. (What's up with Walt appearing before Sayid and Shannon in the jungle? Is he real or is he a ghost?) From Goodwin and Ethan, we know that the Others are intelligent and they have a plan. I would think for Michael, his number one priority is organizing a band of people to search for Walt as soon as possible.

After listening to the LOST podcasts, one thing is for certain: LOST writers are making this up as they go along. They may know certain things in advance, like the tail section plot and Michelle Rodriguez joining before season one ended. But much of the story is growing organically. So far, I think they've made the right choices, let's hope it continues this way. Nuff said.

See also: ABC's Official LOST podcast

Technorati : Lost, Michelle Rodriguez
Ice Rocket : Lost, Michelle Rodriguez

Tonight's the last time ABC will broadcast the new Night Stalker series. I'm not surprised it's being cancelled. First of all, it's a show that involves monsters and creepy crawlies, but it never shows them. The producer, Frank Spotnitz, used to work on X-Files. Many of the plots seem like leftover ideas from X-Files non-mythology episodes. Except the best X-Files horror plots did show creepy things, like the guy who could contort his body and climb through sewer pipes. The first two Night Stalker movies (with Darrin McGavin in the 70s) were successful, because they built a level of suspense that climaxed in the revelation of the vampire or werewolf. I think this version of Night Stalker should have started off with a vampire and reinvented it for the modern era. A masterful vampire to replace the Cigarette Smoking Man, that would have been good. The other problem was Stewart Townsend as Carl Kolchak. He read his lines so woodenly that I think they should have taken away his medications, or perhaps given him a few Red Bulls to amp his energy.

The plots on Night Stalker just plodded along so slowly that I used the quick skip button on ReplayTV, advancing to the parts where Gabrielle Union was in a scene. This chick is just so darn sexy and cute. I love her lips when she pouts or gets in an argument. I've watched many so-so films just to see her: Deliver Us From Eva and Two Can Play That Game (which has a nice little imaginary catfight with Vivica Fox). Her recent Maxim spread was pretty fantastic. The gossip about her personal life is pretty good, too. On a recent Conan appearance, Gabrielle told him that she is taking stripper classes. She and her girlfriend posse go out to bars and play a game to see who can get the most free drinks by dancing seductively. Conan asked Gabrielle if her husband (NFL star Chris Howard) was OK with all this; she said he's fine. A week later I read that she is divorcing her husband. Anyone know the bars that Gabrille usually visits?

Goodbye, Gabrielle, I'll miss you on Thursday nights, but I am sure we will see you again soon. Try to wear as few clothes as possible. As for you, Stewart, I am sure you have Charlize Theron to comfort your loss. Nuff said.

See also: Night Stalker Bites Dust.

Technorati : Gabrielle Union, Night Stalker
Ice Rocket : Gabrielle Union, Night Stalker