West Desperate Anatomy: My Sunday Night

[Katherine Heigl as Izzie on GREY'S ANATOMY. Isn't she gorgeous??] What is there to say about spending three hours in front of the boob tube in a little house in the middle of a thunderstorm? Thank goodness the storm didn't knock out the antenna before the end of THE WEST WING, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and GREY'S ANATOMY.

In a special LIVE production tonight, Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits faced off as presidential hopefuls in a national debate on Aaron Sorkin's THE WEST WING. Now, at least they tried. I really only enjoy the show in reruns, as I have found the new storyline boring and a poor attempt at trying to continue the show's run past the Bartlett administration. However, at least with tonight's episode they tried to gain back some fairweather fans (myself included). Unfortunately, it was a no-win situation.

I found the premise of the episode (two candidates actually agreeing to disagree on the rules of the debate and instead hold a more "open" discussion) silly. The camerawork was shoddy, the scriptwriting uninventive, the performances bad... in all, I can't believe I watched the whole thing. It was uninspired and poorly executed. There was no pivitol moment, unless you count the candidates' discussion on health care when they both asked for hand-held mics and stepped not only in front of their podiums, but down a few steps.

The episode did make me think, though, how exciting it would be to have a weekly sit-com that actually was live. Wow! Now that I would watch. But Mr Sorkin, a suggestion. How can you get more viewers interested and make sure that you keep your show on the air? Let your viewers vote for the next president! Give us an American Idol-style voting system and have viewers call in, in another live episode, and elect a winner! Great and exciting season finale, eh?

At 9pm, I was again disappointed in creator Marc Cherry's DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. After a knock-out premiere season, it seems the series has run out of steam. The storylines are the same old thing each week, or else just pretty stupid. Further, this was the first episode in weeks where the actresses actually appeared in a scene together, and that was in the last seconds of the show. Come on. Mr Cherry, you are definitely losing viewers. And again, the writing is piss poor, except for tonight's one LOL moment:
Susan (Teri Hatcher): "I mean, a murderer is living down the street and we can't do anything because you've been convicted of a felony and I burned down a house over there."

One would think that after two hours of mindless entertainment, I would have turned in for the night. Way wrong. Last season's mid-season starter, created by Shonda Rhimes, GREY'S ANATOMY has won every possible award in my book. Excellent storytelling, scriptwriting, editing, scoring, directing, acting... you name it, it's fantastic. There have been a few series that I have enjoyed with such conviction as this (remember THE PRACTICE and SEAQUEST DSV), but this takes the cake. I have fallen in love with Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey, and am tickled each week by the antics of all the other interns around her.

This week, a bitchy old lady on her fifth heart attack caught fire during open heart surgery, induced by the bottled-up frustration of her patient husband. When he hears of her recovery, he begins laughing uncontrollably, announcing that the "mythical monster" will never die. So he leaves her. Ha!

And, so sad to watch Meredith deal with the loss of Dr McDreamy each week. Sniffle, sniffle. I cannot WAIT until next week.