Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
A well-written sitcom that infuses romance with slapstick humor, “Wings” takes off in its third season with the inclusion of series regular Tony Shalhoub (Monk), who plays immigrant cab driver Antonio Scarpacci. Some of the funniest storylines in this 22-episode collection revolve around Antonio and his quest to stay in the United States.
The CSI franchise continues to thrive with the second season of “CSI: NY,” which aired on CBS during the 2005-2006 season. The kickoff episode is filled with lots of drama–but not much suspense–as the investigators delve into the death of a jewelry designer who is found wearing an $8 million diamond bra. The other case involves the shooting of a thrill seeker who is killed while climbing up a skyscraper.
A pill-popping Episcopalian priest, an affair between the clergyman’s father and the female church bishop, and a wisecracking Jesus Christ. Is it any wonder that there was so much controversy surrounding the January 2006 debut of The Book of Daniel? The series, which lasted less than a month before NBC canceled it, isn’t quite as controversial as it was made out to be. If you take religion out of the mix, you’re left with a loving but conflicted family that argues, loves, and tries to make the best of what they have.
Take equal parts “Laguna Beach,” “The Real World,” and “Melrose Place” and you get MTV’s reality series “8th & Ocean.” Set in the oh-so-glamorous world of modeling (Miami style), the show focuses on the lives (and loves) of 10 hotties trying to become the next Gisele Bundchen and Jason Lewis (“Sex and the City”).
The rapid-paced banter between the mother-daughter team of Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) is the calling card for Gilmore Girls. The show’s sixth year–which aired during the 2005-2006 TV season–remains witty, charming, and touching. The previous season left Yale undergrad Rory in trouble with the law after a night of very un-Gilmore-like behavior with her rich, handsome boyfriend Logan (Matt Czuchry).
Full of action, intrigue, and espionage, “The Unit” offers a dramatic, fictionalized look inside the military while also giving viewers a peek inside the private lives of the elite squad. Conceived by the critically acclaimed David Mamet, the Unit is an elite, covert Special Forces team that operates outside the military chain of command.
The seventh season of “Everybody Loves Raymond” serves up a delightful mix of comedy and pathos as the Barones deal with cults, theft, marriage, and death. The season opener (which aired on CBS in 2002) starts where season 6 ended: with Debra (Patricia Heaton) and Marie (Doris Roberts) feuding, and Ray (Ray Romano) and Robert (Brad Garrett) conjuring up a plan to get them to make up.
Equal parts drama, slapstick comedy, and soap opera, this third season of Las Vegas is all fun. Welcome to the Montecito, a casino and hotel that’s so desirable that the only thing more attractive than its clientele is its smoking-hot staff. Each episode contains some kind of crime–a victim whose kidney was stolen, a woman pretending to be a deceased man’s fiancée, an employee who chops off his own finger and serves it up in a shrimp cocktail. That kind of thing.
The sixth and final season of HBO’s prison drama Oz–which aired in 2003–is brutal, passionate, and gritty. Compellingly addictive with taut storylines and superb acting, each of the eight episodes on this 3-disc set nicely paves the way for the series finale, which wraps the show up in a satisfying (and surprising) manner. Often told through the eyes (and voice) of deceased prisoner Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau, Lost), Oz isn’t an easy show to watch. Inmates are routinely raped, tortured, and killed–not out of need, but out of boredom and cruelty.
The fourth season of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” finds Will (Will Smith) and Carlton (Alfonso Ribeiro) as college freshmen trying to fit in on campus. Carlton’s mom, Vivian, who was played by Janet Hubert-Whitten, is now portrayed by the attractive but not-as-funny Daphne Maxwell Reid. And supermodel Tyra Banks shows up as Will’s latest girlfriend, Jackie.