Monday Television Commentary

Post-Oscar Thoughts:

In what seemed to be a year of fair play, with no "Lord of the Rings" to sweep the show and almost every big movie winning at least one award (Each of the six big categories-- Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor/Actress was taken by a different movie), last night's Oscar show was a bit lackluster. Perhaps it was the fact that -- with the exception of "Crash" as best picture stealer-- much of it went as predicted. That said, I was still extremely happy to see the actress awards go to Rachel Weisz and Reese Witherspoon (Whoa, two "RWs," crazy!).

Reese in particular was one of the highlights of the night and delivered what was, for me, the best speech of the night. It's funny when you're listening to speeches and in your mind you kind of guide yourself through what you think they should say next ("ok, now thank your husband, then wrap it up with something poignant and thoughtful...") and the actor does just that in a very articulate way. The gal is just so cute and whenever she's on camera I can't help but love her and have a big smile on my face. Maybe it's because no matter what roles she had before or after "Legally Blonde," she'll always just be Elle Woods to me. And did we really ever think Elle could win an Oscar? I'm just so proud! Now that I think about it, Reese has pretty nice repertoire... "Cruel Intentions," "Election,"... and for those of you who haven't seen Reese's first movie, "The Man in the Moon," it's worth a rental, not only to see Reese as a 14-year-old but also because it stars Jason London. Great flick! And to think, she's getting paid $29 million for her next movie. That's just wrong, isn't it? I bet Ryan Phillippe sure didn't know he was getting that big of a sugar momma when they got together.

Um, ok, moving on from Reese...

John Stewart's hosting gig has gotten pretty poor reviews all around. I think he was pretty much hit-or-miss on the night (the hit, of course, being his Bjork-Cheney joke, and misses being, well, lots of other jokes that fell flat). All in all, I think he may be a little too deadpan for the Oscar audience with not enough tap-dancing Billy Crystal in him to keep everyone awake-- especially the old peeps-- when the show enters its third hour...

24 (spoilers below if you missed last night's episode):

I just have to comment on tonight's new and "explosive" (to use a TV critic word) 2-hour episode of "24." You know Jack is getting really ruthless when he starts not only threatening the bad guys with guns in their faces, but then shooting their wives instead. Yikes, ease up there Jackie. And what's with Tony Almeida rising from the dead again? Last season you get shot in the neck and you're up running around within 5 hours, and this time it's a car bomb explosion and you're on your feet again on the same day? What say we take a breather and watch some Tivo or something.

So we're about 12 hours into the day now and out of nowhere comes the Vice President. Where ya been, pal? Not out hunting, I hope. Just when it appears someone wise may have arrived to give hopeless President Logan some support, we find out his second-in-command is just as whacked out as he is. "I don't know what's going on since I've been M.I.A. all day, but since I don't feel like dealing with it, let's impose Martial Law!!!" Oh boy, this should be good.

In more serious news, the death of Edgar tonight came as a shock to all loyal "24" fans. He and Chloe were like the CTU peas in a pod, and that he would succomb to death from nerve gas within the hallowed halls of CTU Headquarters is a true television tragedy and is made extra ironic by the fact that his good-hearted nature is what led to his ultimate downfall.

That last scene, however, completely summed up what's clearly a pervading high-school culture at CTU. You had to feel bad for the random and unnamed CTU employee after she banged on the door of the sealed room and all the "popular" A-list kids inside (Jack, Audrey, Buchanan, Chloe-- but only because Chloe is smart and does everyone's homework) just kind of stared blankly, basically shrugged their shoulders and were like "Oops, sorry, you're on your own!" Only when they saw Edgar in the danger zone did they actually show a shred of emotion at the thought of a human being actually dying before their eyes.

Anyway, it should be interesting to see what happens next week when Jack is the one in trouble... which kid will be the one to sacrifice himself for the captain of the football team? Stay tuned.