DirtySexyWeekend

Took the kids away this weekend to your standard hotel-water park-arcade combo. Once the kids were tucked in bed and finally asleep (turns out room service brownies and ice cream at 8 PM does not make for a hasty bed time...note to self) Mrs. OpEd and I decided we would rent the first season of DirtySexyMoney and see if we wanted to get involved this year in season 2. The strike shortened season 1 was only 10 episodes - and we knocked out 8 over the two nights and finished the last two last night. Wow.

First of all, I love watching a TV show this way. Save for an Alias marathon on ABC Family in 2001, we haven't done anything like this since. It was great. I feel like I have a whole new way of enjoying programming I either gave up on or never got around to in years past. Its not that I was opposed to it, its just no one ever forced me to sit in a room and have 4+ hours per night to kill for two straight nights. I could read, but that doesn't sound like fun. No, instead, two adults should lie in bed watching a 15" laptop screen raised up on a suitcase with two sets of headphones. Cute.

I liked this show a lot. I thought Donald Sutherland was great, and that's saying a lot. I thought Peter Krause did a nice job in his boring role as basically the mcguffin to take us from Darling family member to family member, as our lense into their rich and complicated world. And one thing I found refreshing about this show -- secrets don't last very long, everyone tells everyone everything very quickly and the lines of communication seem to be very open on the small week-to-week stuff. The bigger mysteries are just beginning to become clear, but I don't feel like a carrot is being dangled in front of you and then pulled out week-to-week. Kudos. I like Billy Baldwin, I love the evil minister brother's character, I love the twins, and I really like Karen (played by Natalie Zea from 'Passions' which I may or may not have watched a ton of episodes during an unemployment stint in 2001).
This show is being added to the TIVO for 2008 season 2, and of course, its going to suck having to watch it every week instead of 4 per night...I think maybe I will stockpile a few, just to give it that old feeling. And now I wonder which show is next?

EXTRA EXTRA: I also wanted to comment on the Emmy's really quickly. They were awful, awful, awful. Spending all that time on those five idiot hosts and their idiot category while speeding through the rest of the show and the big awards was a disaster. Congrats to Alec Baldwin who deserved this win for his scene at the Shrinks office with Tracy Morgan from last fall, and to Tina Fey who deserves all the accolades she gets. I used to hate her on SNL, now she has become a comedy god to me....hmmm....I wonder how that happened? Anyway, The Office should have won best comedy because they had a better year than 30 Rock, but that's ok....and YES YES to Mad Men who deserved to win best drama. Great to see the cast up there, they deserved everything they got. Jon Hamm got robbed, but there is always next year.