Wow, that was a great epi--------NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

That pretty much sums up my reactions to the closing moments of the mostly-enjoyable Grey's Anatomy season premiere last night. I'm sure most of you can guess what caused my outburst of disbelief and disgust, but for those of you that have been living under a rock, I'm referring to George's declaration of love for Izzie, which still makes absolutely no sense to me. None. But I'll get to that later.

The episode opened with the new residents giving their interns the same speech that Bailey gave them in the pilot. I'm sucker for self-references, so I was immediately pleased by this acknowledgemnt of Grey's happier, funnier, less-filled-wth-relationships-that-make-no-sense past. It seems to be almost everyone in the hospital's first day on the job, b/c apparently all of the new residents took extended vacations after the end of last season's events, although I think I would need a vacation too to get all of those crappy plotlines out of my head. Again, I digress. Apparently, Meredith went with Cristina on her honeymoon and has not spoken to Derek since the wedding. Alex took a road trip and grew beard. Izzie did not speak to George (which IS A GOOD THING, can you hear me writing staff? GOOD THING). George spent most of the time being mad that he was going to be an intern, again. As for Bailey, she was A-N-G-R-Y at the Cheif for passing her over for chief resident. One can only hope that this anger means that the Nazi will be making a return this season, because Bailey is so much better when she's abrupt and cool. And Burke? He resigned two weeks ago (I understand this was a necessary given that Isaiah Washington got booted, but it still seems contrived).

The new residents first day was spent dealing with the aftermath of a car crash caused by a deer and each person got a case that mirrored their current situation and helped them get to some important realization about their current situation in life, blah, blah, blah, we see this every week so I'm not going into it here (Check out TWOP or zap2it if you want a better plot recap). I will address Izzie trying to resuscitate the deer, because I'm really convinced that's she just bat-shit crazy (a term coined by one of my friends in college that I try to work in whenever I can). To be fair, I've been calling Izzie crazy since she cut the LVAD wire at the end of season 2 (when ever discussing her character I refer to her as CI--Crazy Izzie), but all of this stuff with George and her insisting on saving the deer is just getting to be too much. I did like her little speech to her interns at the end, though. But seriously a deer? And then telling George she's Bambi? Come on, Shonda, you can do better.

Moving on, I really, really like Chyler Leigh as Meredith's sister Lexie. She reminds me a lot of the way Meredith used to be in season 1--rambly, a bit nervous, but ultimately self confident, and very, very cute. As George said, she "is kind of awesome." I can understand Meredith wanting to not get involved with her given her past history with her father's family, but I do think if anyone could understand her, it's Lexie. I'm interested to see where this goes.

Other things I liked:

• George delivering the baby like a pro. It's too bad that the other interns will eventually have to find out he's repeating his intern year, b/c I like that they think he's awesome one.
• Cristina and Alex commiserating over their loneliness. They've come a long way from "Evil Spawn."
• Meredith and Derek breaking-up then hooking up. It seems like they're going to start from scratch this time, sleeping together then getting personal. Hey, if it worked for them before, it could work again now.
• Bailey making it rough for Callie. I like Callie, I do, but Bailey deserved to be chief resident. "Better luck tomorrow." Hehe. Old Bailey is BACK!.
• Sloan telling Derek he came to Seattle to win him back. Gotta a love a little bit of man-love.

Now for what I hope will become a weekly feature: Sage Wisdom from People with Dysfunctional Lives--This one comes from Meredith, who is trying to console the single pregnant woman with one arm: "Much better to be alone and be a success than be in a relationship and feel like a failure all the time."

Ok, now for the thing I and I'm sure all of you hated the most: George's confession of love to Izzie. Why? WHY? WHY?!!! Everyone I've spoken to and everything I've read indicates that NO ONE LIKES THIS STORYLINE. IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. HE'S MARRIED TO CALLIE. The previews for next week make it seem like George is going to run and get a divorce no so that he and Izzie can be together. Ugh. I mean, I know that sometimes people who are friends can develop feelings for each other that they didn't expect, but come on, we kind of already saw this with Derek and Meredith and it's more enjoyable when its with characters you know belong together as opposed to characters are being thrown together because the writers seem to either have run out of ideas (which the rest of this episode indicates that they have not) or have started taking mind-altering drugs so that they now live in world where this seems like a good idea. Which it is obviously not.

Ok all, that's it for this week. I'm excited to see where the show goes this season (except for the George/Izzie storyline). What do you think?

Required Reading

As a TV addict, I tend to make references to a bunch of different shows when talking about any one given show. I realize that some of you may not get all of my little inside jokes and cute references, so here's some stuff to get you up to speed. Hopefully you'll soon have a little more insight into the warped inner workings of my brain.

• Television Without Pity. www.televisionwithoutpity.com : This site (TWOP to the cool kids) provides sarcastic recaps of most of the big shows on TV. They also have an archive with all of the shows they used to re-cap that are now no longer on the air. The recaps for the especially bad shows are really fun to read (If you have some time, check out the recap the Charmed series finale. Funniest thing I've ever read, and I never even watched that stupid show).
• EW.com. www.ew.com: Entertainment Weekly's website has some great columns (be on the lookout for Doc Jensen when Lost comes back on) and they also recap most of the big shows as well. I suggest reading this one before TWOP if you miss an episode, b/c this one is marginally more objective.
• Spoilerfix.com. www.spoilerfix.com : This one has spoilers and upcoming episode information for most of the most popular shows on TV. If you like to watch without any knowledge of what's coming, then I suggest staying away from this one.
• Zap2it. www.zap2it.com : Great general entertainment website. They recap A LOT of shows, usually in blog format. They also update daily with the previous night's Nielsen ratings. I also suggest reading the TV Gal blog (she's pretty insightful and watches a lot of the same things I do, if you're interested in a different perspective).

Ok, I think that should be enough to get you started. Happy reading.

IT'S BAAAAACK!

I realize this update is a day later than expected, but since I have to write these posts at work, this is the best I can do. (For those of you interested, my computer has officially died. It will not boot up. The screen will not turn on. I hate Dell.)

Ok, now to the important stuff. First off, I'd like to start with a disclaimer: I'm genetically predisposed to liking Heroes. Growing up I loved X-Men and Spider Man (I dressed up as Wolverine one Halloween), and like any normal person, I wish I too would develop some power to help me escape the mundanity (is that a word? Well it is now) of everyday life. As such, I tend to be more forgiving when Heroes gets a little stinky than other people will (reference Season 1 finale, although even I find it hard to defend those final scenes). Fortunately for me, though, Monday night's episode was AWE-some with a capital A-W-E.

Personally, I love it when shows jump into the future so you have to guess what happened to your favorite characters in the interim (e.g., the two year jump on Alias, although that storyline wound up being very poorly executed). I think it makes watching TV just that much more fun and can provide hours of endless discussion when you've run out of important things to talk about with your friends. So to recap all of the changes: The Bennetts are now the Butlers and live in California instead of Texas. Claire is no longer a cheerleader and her dad works for a copy place instead of a paper company. Claire makes friends with some kid who keeps asking if she's an alien or a robot, which he really has no right to do since he's neither (He can fly though). Nathan grew a beard and got drunk and certainly does not seem to have anything to do with Congress. Mohinder and Parkman are roommates trying to take of little girl Molly (the one who can instantly tell you where a person is) and bring down the mysterious company, which we found out was started by the original generation of Heroes, including Nathan and Peter's mom and Hiro's dad. Speaking of Hiro's dad, he gets pushed off the Devereaux building by a mysterious person from his past who also seems to be targeting Mrs. Petrelli as well (They both got ripped pictures of themselves with the little Heroes symbol scrawled over their faces). As for Hiro himself, he's back in 17th century Japan discovering that his hero Takezo Kensei is neither Japanese nor a hero and really just a big jerk and that in order to put history right he's going to have to do the heroic stuff himself. We're also introduced to new characters Maya and Alejandro (I think that's his name), who are on the run and trying to figure out how to control Maya's power (apparently is something to do with killing people and making thwm bleed out of their eyes......creepy). Ok, I think that's everything, right? What I'm missing something? Oh, yeah, Peter's ALIVE in Ireland with no memory of who he is and shooting electricity out of his hands, which, last time I checked was NOT one of his many powers. Also, he's got a cool looking necklace with the Heroes symbol on it.

Whooo, ok, time for a breather. Ready? Now some random thoughts:

• It's good that Claire's made a new "friend" (I say "friend" because it's completely obvious that they're going to be more than friends very soon), but I'm a little disappointed that his power is flying. We've already seen Nathan fly, and unless this is another one of his illegitimate children (which would make the scenario I just described instantly gross), I think they could have come up with another power.
• The scene where Claire calls Nathan: so sad. If I were Nathan, I'd be happy that my illegitimate daughter whom I tried to send to Europe so my real family wouldn't find out about her still wanted to talk to me, because it seems none of my other family members want to.
• So Molly's having creepy dreams about the Big Bad (I love calling unknown villains Big Bads. It's like talking about monsters from under the bed from childhood). I wonder when we're actually going to get to see this guy.
• People we didn't see this week: Niki, Micah, and DL (although I'm pretty sure DL is dead), Sylar, and......well I'm sure there's someone else, but there are so many characters on this show that I probably won't remember who it is until I see them next week.

So, I think I'll leave on that note. I'm really excited to see where the show goes this season, especially since Kristen Bell will be joining the cast in three weeks time (I'll have more on why that's so important to me when the time comes). I'll be back later in the week with more on the Grey's Anatomy premiere and a quick rundown of which new shows are worth watching.

Tramp Stamp

Last night marked the return of "How I Met Your Mother," or HIMYM as I will henceforth refer to it. (All the cool kids use acronyms). I discovered this show at the beginning of last season and it quickly became one of my favorites, mostly because the characters are believable and the writing is FUNNY (something a lot of comedies don't think is important anymore). Ted, Barney, Marshall, Lilly, and Robin all seem like people I would be friends with. Also, I tend to identify with the storylines (having just graduated from college, long term relationships seem to have grown in importance lately).

Ok, enough about me and why I like the show. Let's get to last night's episode. I'm surprised at how well the writers are handling Ted and Robin's break-up. It definitely seems like they will not be having this pair get back together and are moving forward to having us finally meet the mother. I like shows that move towards resolutions instead of wandering from place to place without any sort of clear destination, creating completely unnecessary problems for itself (e.g., Season 9 of Friends and the Joey/Rachel relationship). I also liked how Ted went to Robin's apartment at the end because he needed to yell irrationally and hadn't been able to do that yet. Again, kudos to the writer's for creating real characters.

Second, and this is another one of my favorite things about this show, I love how the writers work in current pop culture slang, e.g., calling Ted's lower back tattoo a "tramp stamp." I first heard the term from my younger sister (who is much cooler than I am and thus up-to-date on such terminology) about six months ago. This is not the first time they've done this and if anyone else can think of another example, please let me know.

The stunt casting of Mandy Moore and Enrique Iglesias was a bit unnecessary, but they didn't do a bad job, so I won't complain. All in all, I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of this season, especially since they're going to bring back the Slap Bet gag from last season. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the Season 2 episode "Slap Bet," which also features Robin Sparkles, another gag I hope to see again soon). I can't wait until November to find out what happens when the Slap Countdown clock runs out.

Happy New TV Season

Hello and welcome to My DVR Rules My Life. I started this blog because, well, my DVR rules my life. That and my friends have started to get tired of hearing me rant and rave about what happened on one of my many favorite shows the night before. I've realized I'm completely addicted to television and, rather than fight it, I've decided to share my copious TV knowledge with whoever out there is will to listen (or read, since this blog is written and you can't actually hear the sound of my voice).

This season I'll be blogging about the following shows:

How I Met Your Mother
Heroes
30 Rock
Grey's Anatomy
Friday Night Lights

I'll also be adding Lost once it comes back on in February and one of the new fall shows once I get a feel for which ones I actually want to watch. I'm also thinking of doing a weekly recap of what else is going on out there in TV land, but we'll see how that pans out.

Well that's it for now. My first post should be up later today.