I was going to write a pretentious, ranting blog about firewalls and censorship today…but I can’t bring myself to get worked up this morning, thanks to last night’s television delights.
First of all, if you’re not watching HOUSE…what’s your problem? Last night’s episode was a stunning showcase of powerful writing, brilliant acting, inventive direction…all adding up to an emotionally-gripping sixty minutes of television.
At the centre of it all is Hugh Laurie, who simply keeps you staring at the screen — at him! He fills every inch of any room — every scene! —he’s in. The ego, intensity and brilliance of Dr. Gregory House, MD, is distilled so pefectly by Laurie that it’s hard to believe that the actor is a sweet and gentle master of subtlety and comedy in the real world…lightyears away from his TV character. In fact, House may be the first definitive television character of the 21st century, in much the same way as Carol O’Conner’s Archie Bunker and Bill Cosby’s Cliff Huxtable were in past decades.
Watch this show…you are foolish if you can’t appreciate it’s all-encompassing, stunning brilliance (and I’ve used the word brilliance THREE times for a reason…)!
Following House, I basked in the witty, delightful, brain-tingling dialogue of another episode of Gilmore Girls. Gilmore Girls is the complete oppostie of House in terms of intensity and storyline, but both series showcase a love of writing and scripting that is almost non-existent in our current crap-reality-show-obsessed television world. In the case of Gilmore Girls, the entire series is predicated on people with a command of the english language we can only dream about. Rapid fire dialouge, pithy exchanges, scenes where english is elevated to the high art it should always be…
That’s rare enough for any television show. But for an American show to revel in the joys of language? How strange and wonderful…and Lorelai is naming her dog Paul Anka! How cute is that… 
Finally, my night ended with the sight of dozens of happy, smiling beluga whales dancing around a diver on an episode of National Geographic broadcast on TVOntario. If the sight of those pure white cuties doesn’t induce a warm, fuzzy, I-want-to-hug-everyone feeling, you’re probably channelling Ebenezer Scrooge. Stop it immediately!
So why rant, when there were actually nice, happy TV-things to enjoy last night…a rare occurence these days, up there with seeing a living, breathing Dodo bird. Mind you, that new giant hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico might ruin everything. Damn you CNN…
