Television Updates

We said goodbye to Rizzoli and Isles last week. We’ll really miss the show and especially miss the two ladies who centered the piece, Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander. The writers were careful to tie up all loose ends: Jane is going to Quantico to teach; Jane’s mom is back with her manfriend; Korsac retires; Maura is taking a leave of absence after the month she and Jane will spend in Paris; Frankie and Nina come out of the engagement closet. Closure, along with a lot of tears from the actors as well as their audience. Thanks, TNT, for giving us this classy series and a classy ending. But, oh, how I’m going to miss Angie Harmon’s John Wayne saunter. It took her seven seasons to perfect it, but she certainly got it right.

We’re being inundated by magic lately, with Penn and Teller’s Fool Us, Masters of Illusion, and the three or four magicians appearing on America’s Got Talent. I am in awe of these magicians and their tricks. I realize that most of what they do is just a variation of an old tried-and true-magic trick, but I still can’t figure out how they do it. Nor can I figure out how Penn and Teller seem to know every trick ever invented. I just watch it all and shrug my shoulders.

So You Think You Can Dance and America’s Got Talent are down to their finales. When SYTYCD first told us what this season would be, called The Next Generation, I thought it would be a bigtime flop. How can little people, little dancers, be good enough for the show? Wow, was I wrong. We’re down to the final four and all four of them can dance as well as any of the all-stars from past seasons. JT is the cutest little boy, only ten and tiny, but he amazes me with his dance abilities. America’s Got Talent has a mixed bag of ten finalists—a magician, a clairvoyant pair, a tape-mouthed comic, a lovely female contortionist, a juggler, and five singers or singing groups. Of the five in the vocal category, two shouldn’t have made it past the semi-finals, let alone make it to the finals: Linkin Bridge, the quartet from Louisville, and Sal Valentinetti, who pretends he’s the second coming of Sinatra but comes up several miles short. Who do I want to win? Sofie Dossie, who, with her feet, shot an arrow into my heart; or Grace Vanderwall, the next Taylor Swift; or magician Jon Dorenbos. Who will win? Probably Grace Vanderwall.

And, in honor of our impending election (“Impending” sounds like a hurricane, doesn’t it? Well, maybe it is.), I look back at Marty Sheen in West Wing and look now at Tea Leoni in Madame Secretary. I’d vote for either of them to be our next president.