In Hargitay's defense, I think the guy taking her hostage had just gotten shot by Vincent Spano; I'd make that face too. On the other hand, she could have just read yet another script in which a member of the Stabler family is kidnapped, arrested, or pinned in a wrecked car while delivering a baby. Because: seriously.
America's Next Top Model. When did Mr. Jay become kind of rad? Or have I started identifying with my captors? Has Tyra herself become so unbearable to me that anyone who ever makes a shred of non-self-aggrandizing, non-smug sense seems like BFF material?
Do you think Mr. Jay doesn't get to come to panel because he won't play along with shit like "smize-ing," but Miss Jay and Nigel will? Do you think that, years ago, the Jays flipped a coin to see who would have to pretend that Tyra's dippy season themes and Soviet-quality costumes don't suck an egg? "Heads, I win; tails, you have to sit with the other judges and pretend that when Tyra makes the same face twice in a row, there's an instructive difference between the two"?
I miss She's Got The Look. Kim Alexis is more natural on-camera, doesn't suffer from pathological narcissism, and runs a sensible panel whose advice is logical and occasionally funny on purpose. But nobody watched that show except me and a few stoners who switched to TV Land expecting a Barney Miller rerun. Sigh.
Brothers & Sisters. I said at some point that I would give it two or three episodes to win me back over this season; then I heard that they'd cast Amy "Toni Pavone" Aquino, which annoyed me, because I love her and I'd have to stick with it.
But why did they have to stash her in a plotline I can already tell I will despise? Kitty is still treating Robert like he left a skidmark on their sheets, which I think the audience is supposed to support her in, and in theory, that's fine, but in practice, she's not sympathetic — the writing and the acting choices both make me want to slap her. Now we have to "worry" that she has cancer? The character has become utterly unlikeable in the last year, and we've seen this done much better — via Patricia Wettig's Nancy on thirtysomething, among others.